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GNU is Not Unix Programming IT Technology

Old C Compiler Lives Again Under GPL 46

Posted by timothy from the just-what-I-was-looking-for dept.
JordanH writes "The DeSmet-C compiler, a commercial C compiler from the '80s, is being released under the GPL. Yet another alternative C compiler implementation available for your coding pleasure."
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Old C Compiler Lives Again Under GPL More

Old C Compiler Lives Again Under GPL

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  • Forgive me, but... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Total_Wimp ( 564548 )
    I do think it's good to bring new life to old code by open-sourcing it, but this one seems a little problematic. Playing Doom or using an old OS for a special purpose can be fun and useful, but why would you want to chance your code on an old and questionably maintained compiler?

    If I'm missing something, let me know, but this just looks a bit more useless than the average open source project. I know it's educational, but is there anything real anyone would chance on it?

    • Re:Forgive me, but... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe gcc could borrow some code. Who knows maybe theres some hidden gold in there. Anything to improve its compiling....

    • RTFA! (Score:2, Informative)

      by dotzie ( 901508 )
      From the FA:

      """
      There are other, smaller options like TCC that is a complete C compiler, but it's too geared to 386+ and Linux to be a good playground. Other open-source C compilers tend to be variations of Small C that, while understandable, don't implement the entire language.
      """
      • From the FA:

        """
        There are other, smaller options like TCC that is a complete C compiler, but it's too geared to 386+ and Linux to be a good playground. Other open-source C compilers tend to be variations of Small C that, while understandable, don't implement the entire language.
        """

        I think that was the entire point. We don't implement the entirety of the English language every day here where I live or in British universities for that matter and we're quite understandable. It might be different if to su

    • Not for serious use (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nasarius ( 593729 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @04:18PM (#13234067)
      From the article:
      I started feeling the usual insane urge to play with a C compiler source.

      It seems it's more for people who just want to poke at the source of a real compiler, without having to deal with the mind-boggling complexities of GCC. I might take a look myself.

      • It seems it's more for people who just want to poke at the source of a real compiler, without having to deal with the mind-boggling complexities of GCC. I might take a look myself.

        If I were in that position I'd take a look at the Plan 9 compiler.
      • for that purpose, lcc [princeton.edu] is pretty good. The source is available for free, but there's also a college-level compiler book which goes along with it. The parsing and lexing are done manually (rather than generated via flex/lex and bison/yacc).
    • i see many reasons for why you might want to have a portable well-maintained compiler across many diverse platforms. if i've got the source to all my projects, but no compiler source, how am i going to get my code ported to exotic architectures for me, 2000 years from now?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • There was a real question in my post. Would anyone chance a real compile using this compiler for code they actually care about?

        There's a difference between an open source project that's actually used by real people to do real work (or fun) and one that's just educational code. It's not bitching and moaning to point that out. It's also not bitching and moaning to sugest that open source would be better understood by all if this difference was made more clear.
    • well if you are trying to maintain old code staying with the original compiler means that you won't run into bugs caused by new behaviour in a new compiler.

  • lots of choices, but is there really a good reason to GPL this, other than to see what the state of the art ight have been 15-20 years ago?

    Don't get me wrong, I love good compilers, but with all the changes in the standard, and current, good, optimizing compilers, why would we want this?

    • is there really a good reason to GPL this

      As much of a reason (some would say more) as releasing personal ramblings that no one reads (most blogs) under the GFDL [wikipedia.org].

      Eric
      The ANSI Standard: A Summary for C Programmers [ericgiguere.com] (old but oddly relevant)
    • If the GPL is all about choice, why are you whining about more choices? I really wish /. would get over the "It's not very exciting/I don't use it/there are better things, who cares if it's GPL/support GPL products" thing. (see Google/Yahoo Toolbar) Any GPL code is a good thing for the GPL.
    • ...with all the changes in the standard, and current, good, optimizing compilers, why would we want this?

      For running on systems where you don't have MiB spare to run GCC 3.

    • I'm getting really fed up by that kind of comment.
      Mostly, about the mods who think they are "interesting".

      If you were arguing about the relevancy of this story being on /. , I would understand. Of course, nothing else seems to have happened tosay, so it's ok.

      If you were just trolling, I would understand, too. It's fun to troll.

      If you think that people shouldn't GPL stuff just for the sake of it, because it's an innecesary increase of entropy, then why do you make things worse by adding a completely useless
    • A reason to GPL it? Sure. And my reason would be "Because they can".

      Is there a reason to keep this old, obsolete compiler, that may have some interesting sections (if only from a historic perspective), as a proprietry, closed system?

      Maybe it can be improved/updated and end up being a real rival for modern compilers.
      Kept locked, we would never know.
      GPLed we at least have the option.
    • I think many of you missed my point, so let me clarify. GPL-ing something because we can is all well and good. However, I'm trying to determine a legitimate reason for this to be GPL'd. I understand GPL-ing new things, and even some recent items. However, for something old (and apparently out of date), public domain, BSD, MIT, or similar releases would have been far more interesting.

      The only use I can really see for this would be to compile old code. Considering the 386 was developed in the mid-80's, I ass

      • What's wrong with newer compilers being geared for 386+?

        What about MIPS, SPARC, ARM, PowerPC? A retargetable compiler may prove useful to more people than one that makes too many x86-specific assumptions.

  • Pretty nifty story behind the open-sourcing. I wonder how many other applications have received this sort of treatment and how many more wait in anticipation for freedom.

    First post?
    • What story? He found the author(s), contacted them, and asked permission. Not really a page turner, that.
    • I wonder moreso, how many other applications the source code has been completely and utterly lost for. Hell, I don't have the source code for much of anything that I used to write, I relied on the Internet to be my backup. Well, that didn't turn out nearly as easily done when you're talking about a project with a hundred or so users at most, versus say, Linux. heh.

  • C'mon (Score:5, Funny)

    by lbmouse ( 473316 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @04:07PM (#13233922) Homepage
    How is something from the 80's considered OLD?! It's not even vintage yet. I have underwear from the 80's that are just fine.

  • Shareware Catalogs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <`vasqzr' `at' `netscape.net'> on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @04:13PM (#13233993)
    I remember seeing this in shareware catalogs. Didn't it generate assembler code, and you had to have MASM to build your program?

    Anyone remember MIX C? They used to have the full-page ads in Computer Shopper, you got the compiler, book, and everything for $59.95.

    I never got to use either of them, I was lucky enough to get a copy of Borland Turbo C.

    • Re:Shareware Catalogs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rot26 ( 240034 ) * on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @04:24PM (#13234167) Homepage Journal
      IIRC, the DeSmet compiler was the cheapest "real" compiler you could get in the early 80's. Mix was more like a toy. Support was excellent... I called them once to ask a stupid question, and they said "We don't know, why don't you call Mark?" and then they gave me his home phone number, and I promptly woke him up. FWIW, I believe that Mark DeSmet wrote the macro assembler that Intel used internally as well.
    • I was lucky enough to get a copy of Borland Turbo C.

      Ahhh, the memories...

    • Yes, I used MIX C when I had to write for DOS. It was great. A nice compiler, for which you could also get a pretty nice windowing/graphics library and various other things, for very little money. I think that the compiler by itself was only $20 when I got it. I've always wondered how the company made a profit with such low prices.

      It looks like they're still in business. Their website [mixsoftware.com] was updated less than a year ago.

  • Addendum (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JordanH ( 75307 ) on Wednesday August 03, 2005 @11:12PM (#13237268) Homepage Journal
    I was in a hurry when I submitted this story.

    I should have added that I saw this on the excellent PLNews: Programming Language News [tacojuice.org] site.

  • Also check out the ACK (Score:3, Interesting)

    by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Thursday August 04, 2005 @04:00AM (#13238127) Homepage Journal
    You can never have too many compilers, is my motto. Kudos to the author for making it open source.

    <PLUG>

    If you want to try something altogether larger, more powerful and more flexible, then check out the ACK [sf.net] --- this is a compiler toolchain written by Andy Tanenbaum and Ceriel Jacobs that was released under a BSD license a few years ago. It supports K&R C, ANSI C, Pascal, Modula 2, Occam, Basic and Fortran, and supports a whole bunch of (slightly elderly) architectures. A subset of the compiler comes with Minix, if you've ever used that. Ever wanted to run Occam programs on your Apple I? Yep, you can do that.

    It's way, way smaller than gcc, astonishingly faster, much easier to port new architectures for, and produces adequate if not brilliant code.

    </PLUG>

  • 1) I survived a slashdotting! Yah!! (at least it wasn't the front page!)

    2) Where I expect the source code to show up most often is in someone's compiler class homework (unattributed, of course...)

    3) People have been asking "what's the use of an old compiler"? As I mentioned on the website, it's small enough so that a noobie (like me) can get their teeth into it. The code itself may never go anywhere, but the lessons learned will be around for a long time.

    Bill

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