Xref: utzoo comp.arch:6576 comp.lang.c:13271 comp.lang.misc:1992 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!snark!eric From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Machine-independent intermediate languages Message-ID: Date: 12 Oct 88 13:59:05 GMT References: <358@istop.ist.co.uk> <912@sword.bellcore.com> Organization: Willam Claude Dukenfield Discordian Cabal Lines: 24 In <912@sword.bellcore.com>, yba@sabre.bellcore.com (Mark Levine) writes: > [...] the target for the compiler is C. Given that most new machines > these days get C as part of the initial language suite, even though it is > not all things to all of us, perhaps (I was wrong and) we already have a > _de facto_ MIIL. [...] Perhaps the better > topic is how much it costs to do better than C, rather than whether one can. Precisely the point I have been trying to make. And, on a related topic: Peter ("Have you hugged your wolf today?") deSilva seems to think the point of a uMIIL is to provide a medium for selling software, a way for it to be distributed in machine-independent form that nosy hackers can't read and modify. Excuse me, but I thought the security problem in for-sale software was to guard it from unauthorized *copying* and *use*, not unauthorized *understanding*! A uMIIL does nothing for the real problem, since by definition it has to be easy to copy and run on lots of machines. -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: ...!{uunet,att,rutgers}!snark!eric = eric@snark.UUCP Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718