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From: Muttley@DastartdlyHQ.org
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2024 14:54:13 -0000 (UTC)
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On Sun, 13 Oct 2024 13:43:54 -0000 (UTC)
cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) boring babbled:
>In article <vefvo0$k1mm$1@dont-email.me>,  <Muttley@DastartdlyHQ.org> wrote:
>>On Sat, 12 Oct 2024 16:36:26 -0000 (UTC)
>>It can mean either. Essentially its a binary that contains directly runnable 
>>CPU machine code. I'm not sure why you're having such a conceptual struggle 
>>understanding this simple concept.
>
>Oh, I understand what you mean; it's your choice of non-standard
>terminology that I object to.  Admittedly, Microsoft uses the

So what is standard terminology then?

>Or consider x86; most modern x86 processors are really dataflow
>CPUs, and the x86 instruction encoding is just a bytecode that
>is, in fact, interpreted by the real CPU under the hood.  So
>where does that fit on your little shrink-to-fit taxonomy?  What

What happens inside the CPU is irrelevant. Its a black box as far as the
rest of the machine is concerned. As I said in another post, it could be
pixies with abacuses, doesn't matter.

[lots of waffle snipped]

>>I could bore you with the number I've actually "dealt with" including 
>>military hardware but whats the point.
>
>Weird appeals to experience, with vague and unsupported claims,
>aren't terribly convincing.

So its ok for you to do that but nobody else?

>>You've probably programmed the 
>>occasional PIC or arduino and think you're an expert.
>
>Ok, Internet Guy.

I'll take that as a yes. Btw, you're some random guy on the internet too
claiming some kind of higher experience.

>>I disagree. Modern linux reminds me a lot of SunOS and HP-UX from back in 
>>the day.
>
>Then I can only guess that you never used either SunOS or HP-UX.

"I disagree with you so you must be lying". Whatever.

>>Anybody serious presumably meaning you.
>
>Sorry, you've shown no evidence why I should believe your
>assertions, and you've ignored directly disconfirming evidence

Likewise.

>>Really? So java bytecode will run direct on x86 or ARM will it? Please give
>>some links to this astounding discovery you've made.
>
>Um, ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazelle

So its incomplete and has to revert to software for some opcodes. Great.
FWIW Sun also had a java processor but you still can't run bytecode on
normal hardware without a JVM.

>>So in your mind google translate is a "compiler" for spoken languages is it?
>
>To quote you above, "now you're just being silly."

Why, whats the difference? Your definition seems to be any program that can
translate from one language to another.

>>No, it was a pre-compiler. Just like Oracles PRO*C/C++.
>
>Nope.

Yes, they're entirely analoguous.

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/appdev.112/e10825/pc_02prc.htm

>>I know the important ones. You've dug out some obscure names from google
>>that probably only a few CS courses even mention never mind study the work of.
>
>
>Ok, so you aren't familiar with the current state of the field
>as far as systems go; fair enough.

Who cares about the current state? Has nothing to do with this discussion.

>Aho, Sethi, and Ullman: "Simply stated, a compiler is a program
>that reads a program written in one language -- the _source_
>language -- and translates it into an equivalent program in
>another language -- the _target_ language."

Thats an opinion, not a fact.

>So it would seem that your definition is not shared by those who
>quite literally wrote the book on compilers.

Writing the book is not the same as writing the compilers.

>Look, I get the desire to want to pin things down into neat
>little categorical buckets, and if in one's own experience a
>"compiler" has only ever meant GCC or perhaps clang (or maybe
>Microsoft's compiler), then I can get where one is coming from.

You can add a couple of TI and MPLAB compilers into that list. And obviously
Arduinos , whatever its called. Been a while.

>But as usual, in its full generality, the world is just messier
>than whatever conceptual boxes you've built up here.

There's a difference between accepting there are shades of grey and asserting
that a compiler is pretty much any program which translates from one thing to
another.