Xref: utzoo comp.arch:6534 comp.lang.c:13237 comp.lang.misc:1982 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!lfcs!db From: db@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry (LFCS)) Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Machine-independent intermediate languages Message-ID: <831@etive.ed.ac.uk> Date: 10 Oct 88 16:18:52 GMT References: <853@goofy.megatest.uucp> Sender: news@etive.ed.ac.uk Reply-To: db@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry (LFCS)) Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U Lines: 19 In article eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) writes: >Certainly. It's called 'C'. > >No flames about C's problems, please. I know it's not perfect. But the *fact* >is that it is now filling the niche in the computer science ecology that you're >describing -- and you haven't advanced any compelling reasons to abandon its >HLLness in favor a search for a hypothetical uMIIL. C isn't the only language filling this niche. LISP is another. C is presumably better for languages where efficiency is a prime concern, and LISP for those requiring garbage collection, etc. The choice is also affected by the availability of implementations for the desired hardware; LISP would presumably be a better choice for a LISP machine. As an aside, I've heard both disparagingly described as "portable assemblers" (and I've heard their proponents take that as a compliment). Dave Berry, Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh. db%lfcs.ed.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk !mcvax!ukc!lfcs!db