[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2018-08-01 20:07, invalid wrote:
> On 2018-08-01, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 7/31/2018 4:18 PM, invalid wrote:
>>> On 2018-07-29, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>>> On 2018-07-29, invalid <address at is.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> What should they have used to write a FORTRAN compiler in 1957 or 1966?
>>>>> A COBOL compiler in 1959? A PL/I compiler in 1964?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> High level languages were a _lot_ simpler back in those days. :-)
>>>
>>> Maybe, but the point was there was no other choice of implementation
>>> language in those days. And 50+ years later  we're still using those
>>> languages (except for IBM FORTRAN, which is sadly lost in time at F77+)
>>> now. Which is why the compilers are still mostly assembler. Except maybe for
>>> C/C++ which may be heading towards self-hosting.
>>
>>
>> Well - C and C++ seems to be the most widely used languages
>> for compilers (at least compilers generating native code).
> 
> C and C++ have less than .1% market share on the mainframe.

Meanwhile mainframes represent maybe (optimistically( 0.1% of the total 
market for compilers. And for the 99.9% representing everything else, C 
and C++ have maybe a 90% market share (if not more), meaning C and C++ 
are totally dominating when it comes to languages for implementing 
compilers.

Just observing...

(And the same is true if we talk operating systems, except that C++ is 
rather minor.)

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
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