Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf.edu!ccb.ucsf.edu!dick
From: dick@ccb.ucsf.edu (Dick Karpinski)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Software Distribution
Summary: Is RTL the legendary UNCOL??
Message-ID: <1347@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu>
Date: 25 Aug 88 23:20:53 GMT
References: <1988Aug19.175624.19835@utzoo.uucp> <2793@hubcap.UUCP> <1988Aug23.180420.28483@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: root@cca.ucsf.edu
Reply-To: dick@ucsfccb.UUCP (Dick Karpinski)
Organization: UCSF Computer Center
Lines: 32

In article <1988Aug23.180420.28483@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <2793@hubcap.UUCP> mrspock@hubcap.UUCP (Steve Benz) writes:
>>> Things like data-type sizes often have to be decided before
>>> the intermediate representation is generated....
>... layout of structs in memory ... the results of "sizeof" ... "varargs" 
>...
>looks very much like a tokenized version of the source.  

Indeed, it can be argued that the Gnu C Compiler's Register Transfer
Language (gcc's RTL) does look like a tokenized version of the source.
I don't mind that a bit.  But would it work??  Would vendors fear to
have their products canabalized and reused in pieces?  Probably not.

Do I really understand correctly that this Stallman product accomplishes
the hitherto unrealistic UNiversal Computer Oriented Language (UNCOL)??
Of course, in the presence of array/vector processors and the like, the
universal part is a bit diminished, but still, does he have it right for
the ordinary 32-bit workstation of today?  I'm not at all sure, but it
looks awfully good to me.

I would forsee a sort of validation suite to test both the gcc backend
(with the machine description) and the specific properties of system
calls on the target system.  Since such a suite would tell it like it
is, I presume that users would like it more than hardware vendors and
the sales support staff.

Dick

Dick Karpinski  Manager of Minicomputer Services, UCSF Computer Center
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