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

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2018-08-01 20:10, invalid wrote:
> On 2018-08-01, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 7/31/2018 4:47 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> On 2018-07-31 01:44, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 7/30/2018 1:39 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>> Isn't RATFOR a kind of compiler that reads RAT and emits
>>>>> an intermediate language resembling Fortran?  :-)
>>>>
>>>> I assume it is joke.
>>>>
>>>> RAT stands for RATional.
>>>>
>>>> And it outputs valid Fortran.
>>>
>>> I don't see why you would think it's a joke.
>>
>> I assume it was a joke about "rat" also being a generaly
>> despised animal.
>>
>>>                                             It's a very appropriate
>>> description of the RATFOR compiler. It takes a language as input, and
>>> outputs another as output, just like any compiler.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> But I don't think the input is RAT.
>>
>>>                                                And it's a compiler
>>> written in FORTRAN.
> 
> No, it is not. It's a preprocessor written in PASCAL to add what K&R wanted
> to FORTRAN.

Others have already pointed out the error about Pascal being involved.

Do you know what the difference between a preprocessor and a compiler 
is? It's that we choose to call one a preprocessor because we can still 
read and understand the output results from that one.

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol