Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!cod!mball
From: mball@cod.NOSC.MIL (Michael S. Ball)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Zortech distribution methods (was: Versions of Zortech Compiler)
Message-ID: <1360@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 12 Jan 89 04:10:26 GMT
References: <6578@pogo.GPID.TEK.COM> <6590084@hplsla.HP.COM>
Reply-To: mball@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (Michael S. Ball)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 22

In article <6590084@hplsla.HP.COM> jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock) writes:
>> Excuse me,
>I think a lot of people have been saying that a c++ compiler
>is a lot more difficult beast than a c compiler, but I'm not
>sure that's true.

Having written a C++ compiler, without leaving out some of the hard
parts like G++ does, I can say that the front end is considerably more
complex than a C front end.  The optimizer and code generator, of
course, stay about the same.  By actual object code measurements the
front end is about 3 times the size of a C front end.  By experience
it is a lot harder to get right.  There are many subtleties which are
not at once apparent, especially if you want to generate good code.

Adding multiple inheritance and some of the other 2.0 features increases
the complexity still further.

Michael S. Ball
TauMetric Corporation
1094 Cudahy Pl. Ste 302
San Diego, CA 92110
(619)275-6381