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From: Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2024 14:50:09 -0000 (UTC)
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On Sat, 12 Oct 2024 13:53:56 -0000 (UTC)
cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) gabbled:
>In article <vedcjc$3mqn$1@dont-email.me>,  <Muttley@DastartdlyHQ.org> wrote:
>>up. You can't just point the CPU at the first byte of the binary and off it
>>goes particularly in the case of Linux where the kernel requires decompressing
>
>>first.
>
>Again, not generally, no.  Consider an embedded system where the
>program to be executed on, say, a microcontroller is itself
>statically linked at an absolute address and burned into a ROM,

Unlikely to be running *nix in that case.

>with the program's entry point at the CPU's reset address.  I
>suppose that's not "standalone" if you count a ROM burner as
>part of "loading" it.

Now you're just being silly.

>Also, I mentioned Unix, not Linux.  The two are different.  The

Are they? Thats debatable these days. I'd say Linux is a lot closer to 
the philosphy of BSD and SYS-V than MacOS which is a certified unix.

>>Standalone as you are well aware in the sense of doesn't require an
>interpreter
>>or VM to run on the OS and contains CPU machine code.
>
>So what about a binary that is dynamically linked with a shared
>object?  That requires a runtime interpreter nee linker to bind
>its constituent parts together before it's executable.  And what
>if it makes a system call?  Then it's no longer "standalone", as
>it necessarily relies on the operating system to perform part of
>its function.

Standalone in the sense that the opcodes in the binary don't need to be
transformed into something else before being loaded by the CPU.

>usually in userspace.  Why do you think that a compiler that
>generates bytecode for some virtual machine is any different
>from a compiler that generates object code for some CPU?

I'd say its a grey area because it isn't full compilation is it, the p-code
still requires an interpreter before it'll run.

>You don't seem to be able to recognize that the compilation step

Compiling is not the same as converting. Is a javascript to C converter a
compiler? By your definition it is.

>>Where do you get this commonly accepted definition from?
>
>*shrug*  Tanenbaum; Silberschatz; Kaashoek; Roscoe; etc.  Where
>did you get your definition?

Only heard of one of them so mostly irrelevant. Mine come from the name of
tools that compile code to a runnable binary.