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

[invalid]

On 2018-08-02, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 8/1/2018 2:07 PM, 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.
>
> Yes, but compilers are a relative specialized area.
>
>>                                                           And they will
>> never catch on very much because they are broken, unsafe languages that are
>> too high level to be useful for writing systems software and too low level
>> to be used for writing applications.
>
> They are totally dominating the market for systems software in general.

Yes, I understand that. But the discussion was relative to IBM and my
comments were only about that.

> Whether C++ is a good language for writing a compiler has nothing
> to do with the platform knowledge.

It does indeed, because you have to write the libraries / run-time etc. to
work on the host.