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From: bob@pdn.UUCP (Bob Hickle)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ vs Objective-C
Message-ID: <1549@pdn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 19:06:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: pdn.1549
Posted: Wed Oct 14 19:06:45 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 05:36:07 EDT
References: <3405@ece-csc.UUCP> <638@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <1811@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <185@geovision.UUCP>
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Lines: 36
Summary: A slight correction - Objective-C compiler IS a compiler ...
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.misc:744 comp.lang.smalltalk:361 comp.lang.c++:512

In article <185@geovision.UUCP>, alastair@geovision.UUCP(Alastair Mayer) writes:
> In article <1971@tekig5.TEK.COM> tomm@tekig5.UUCP (Tom Milligan) writes:
> >
> >Both Objective-C and C++ are C language Preprocessors.  Thus the capablility
> 
>     Sorry, no.  Objective-C is indeed a preprocessor, but C++ is a C superset
> and the C++ 'program' is actually a *compiler* for the language C++.  It
> is C++ (specifically the 'cfront' pass) that does the syntactic and semantic
> analysis.

Wait a minute here!  The Objective-C COMPILER is just as much a compiler
as the C++ compiler.  The Objective-C compiler does parsing, syntactic and
semantic analysis of the Objective-C language.  It builds parse trees, etc
just like other compilers do.

>    The release version of C++ does happen to use your existing C compiler
> as a code-generator.  However, the output from C++ is a C-language version
> of the internal parse tree, ie new code, not the old code with the C++
> extensions translated.   I understand that the C++ compiler used internally
> at Bell Labs bypasses this step.
> 

Well heck, the output of ANY (working) compiler is some concrete
representation of the internal parse tree.  Anyway, I believe (but may
be wrong here) that the Objective-C compiler also compiles the ordinary
C code in an Objective-C program.  It just happens to produce output
which is the same C code.  That does not mean that it has not been
compiled (ie. parsed, syntax checked, etc).

I see that PPI (the vendor of Objective-C) is now on the net. 
Any comments from them?
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