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Programming IT Technology

Open Watcom 1.2 Released 71

Posted by timothy from the for-your-fortran-needs dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Open Watcom 1.2 has been released and is now available for download from the Open Watcom website. This release contains a large number of new features, product enhancements and several fixs designed to bring Open Watcom to a higher level of quality and compatibility. SciTech software Inc, the official maintainers of the Open Watcom project, have also announced the availability of an updated Open Watcom CD, complete with SciTechs installer for DOS, OS/2, and windows. Support for the update will be handled exclusively through the Open Watcom website. Read More." According to the web site, "the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran products will be the first mass market, proprietary compilers to be Open Sourced."
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Open Watcom 1.2 Released More

Open Watcom 1.2 Released

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  • Is it worth it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sklivvz ( 167003 ) * <marco@cecconi.gmail@com> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @11:03AM (#7973863) Homepage Journal
    This tool compiles for various Win32/16 flavors plus dos and os/2. It doesn't do Linux or PPC/PalmOS... that are the two platforms where you really wanna cross compile!
    Do you people think it's a worthwhile product? Has it retained the value it used to have back in the day when most DOS games were compiled using Watcom?
    • I've been using it since the first release.
      I use it because it builds nice fast executables.
      For log processing utilities you want to be able to run on any ms os, it works great.

    • Re:Is it worth it? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tagren ( 715283 )
      They are working on an Linux version:

      http://www.openwatcom.org/about/info_content.ht m l

      " Since then the developer community has been working hard to get the next release of Open Watcom prepared, including ports to Linux, FreeBSD and the inclusion of the STLPort package."

      One could say what is the point of starting the fsf/gcc project. It dont run on anything other than what the devs started on... At the time they started working on it I mean.. not now :=).
      ---

    • Re:Is it worth it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by zozie ( 165382 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @05:52PM (#7979226)
      OpenWatcom is there for Linux too, you just need to compile it from source code.

      It's already 100% functional as a cross-compiler
      (from Linux too DOS/Windows/OS/2 but still not there yet as a native compiler: it has to use it's own libc and cannot output ELF objects (only ELF executables). The debugger works too, but
      symbolic debugging only works with OW compiled
      executables.

      That means it's fine for statically linked plain ANSI C executables on Linux but does not integrate very well with the GNU toolchain, X libraries, ....

  • Ahhh, the old days (Score:3, Funny)

    by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @11:08AM (#7973930) Homepage
    I would have paid good money for a free Watcom back in about 1992. Well, unless it was free that is, then I would have kept my money. Watcom was big news back then, and seemed to have all the features my Borland C++ 3 lacked.

    Is this still a useful product for people? Is the Windows support going to be good enough that it will supplant any of the other development options a Windows user has?

    Most importantly, does it support Expanded and Extended memory?
    • > Most importantly, does it support Expanded and Extended memory?

      I *believe* it comes with a free DOS extender, so yes. It certainly has support for several (once-)common ones.

      --
      Paul

      • Re:Ahhh, the old days (Score:5, Informative)

        by pwroberts ( 600985 ) <slashdot AT pwroberts DOT com> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:01PM (#7975345) Homepage Journal
        >> Most importantly, does it support Expanded and Extended memory?
        > I *believe* it comes with a free DOS extender, so yes. It certainly has support for several (once-)common ones.

        From the Open Watcom site:

        "Free DOS extenders included!
        Open Watcom C/C++ and FORTRAN includes a number of royalty free and Open Source DOS extenders right out of the box. Thanks to Tenberry Software's gracious donation, the original DOS/4GW DOS extender from Watcom C/C++ and FORTRAN is included royalty free with the Open Watcom compilers. Also included is the now free CauseWay DOS extender developed by Michael Devore. Both binaries are included as well as complete source code in the source archives. Finally we have also included the free PMODE/W and DOS/32A DOS extenders as part of the package."

        --
        Paul

        • Thinking about that old stuff... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:32PM (#7975739) Homepage
          ...really puts in perspective the rate of change in computers. It's been a long time since I thought about what I was going to use extended memory for, or strategies for getting a block right on a 64K line (for use in DMA) without wasting space. I suppose in a few years, it will sound just as hokey to be thinking about how you were going to connect to a database.

          I didn't know anyone on the BBS's that had Watcom (or knew much about it beyond its memory setup), but most of us wanted it (everyone noticed it in the Doom load screens). Perhaps having it available will usher in a new wave of retro programming from my generation.

    • I did pay for the Watcom 32-bit compiler for DOS, Windows and OS/2, back then. Never used it very much though, the main reason for using it was learning the OS/2 Presentation Manager API, but I never got really far.

      Before I got enough hardware to run Linux, I bought several compilers, two versions of Zortech C++, and after that the Watcom compiler, because Symantec did not support OS/2 anymore.

      And now I only use scripting languages with Tk.

      Jurgen

  • yet there is no explanation as to what the product is? Do editors assume everyone is aware of what this program is?
  • Why would someone use Watcom rather than GCC?

    I understand that the Fortran compiler may be better than free alternatives.

    • Re:Why would someone use Watcom rather than GCC? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe you've got a ton of old code that only runs on OS/2/DOS and wouldn't compile cleanly under GCC?
    • Because they're already familar with Watcom?

      Because they like an IDE?

      Because Watcom has better support for Windows .libs and dlls?

      I think the main reason though, is "Why not?". Why use GCC instead of Watcom? There's no overriding reason not to use Watcom. A lot of people have been using it for a while. Why switch?
      • Because Watcom has better support for Windows .libs and dlls?
        As a large fan of Watcom, Regular user of it, and poster on the watcom newsgroups, I must say that GCC has superior support for windows DLLs. Now Watcom has its own eccentricities for using DLLs, such as the command line NOSTDCALL to strip the _ and @N from stdcall exported stdcall functions. However, gcc's dlltool lets you do all sorts of fun things, and GCC lets you you specify a DLL on on the command line instead of an import lib to resolve e
    • I understand that the Fortran compiler may be better than free alternatives.


      Yes and no. WatFor77 was/is indeed very good, but it's a little dated.

      The future is G95 [sf.net].

    • Re:Why would someone use Watcom rather than GCC? (Score:5, Informative)

      by zozie ( 165382 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @08:50PM (#7980962)
      Compared to current gcc's it's
      * a very fast compiler (compile-time speed)
      * that produces very compact code (in terms of size)
      * so the generated code *may* even be faster than gcc's (if a loop just fits in the cache), despite the fact that gcc has quite a few more years of optimization improvements now.
      * it also feels more native on non-UNIX platforms
      (whatever that means ... gcc on Windows has a ported feel, some people don't like that, some others don't mind or like it)
      * can generate 16-bit code, useful for bootloaders (and FreeDOS :)
      * even supports "far" (48-bit) pointers in protected mode
      * all in all very good for embedded and driver work IMHO

      on the other hand GCC is much better now in terms of standard compliance (in particularly C++); OW is slowly catching up a bit, has a more extensive warning system, supports SSE(2), custom Athlon and p4 optimizations, profile guided optimization, supports many other CPUs,
      etc etc.
    • I understand that the Fortran compiler may be better than free alternatives.
      The Watcom FORTRAN compiler (which I used in 1990) has an auspicious ancestor, the WATFIV compiler from the University of Waterloo. They have a history page [uwaterloo.ca] for it there.

  • But is it usable? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm very interested in finding out if the user interface isn't still a complete joke. Usability was never Watcom's strong point... actually, usability was always the very *worst* aspect of the compiler. It made Microsoft Visual Studio a dream in comparison, probably why it lost the compiler wars despite having a reputation of good performance for the things it compiled.

    Anyone know if it's been improved for this release?
    • It's a freaking compiler! It doesn't have to be user friendly!

      If you want to use an IDE, go use and IDE. No one is stopping you. I have nothing against them. But a compiler is not and should be an IDE.

    • Re:But is it usable? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 )
      Lots of people seem to agree with you, but for some reason, I've never worked out what it is that it doesn't do. Personally, I'm quite fond of it. The main reason for this is I'm a screen space miser, and It's one of the few IDEs that comes with a full screen editor.
    • Watcom didn't really lose the compiler wars, it simply dropped out. Sybase bought Watcom years ago because they wanted Watcom SQL. They immediately stopped development of the Watcom compiler.

      • Re:But is it usable? (Score:4, Informative)

        by mobiGeek ( 201274 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @02:23AM (#7983085)
        Sybase bought Watcom years ago because they wanted Watcom SQL
        Actually, Sybase acquired Powersoft [sybase.com] in 1995 for its application development tools (e.g. PowerBuilder). Powersoft had acquired Watcom in 1994 [ianywhere.com] specifically to add an RDBMS to their product line.

        There were industry rumours of Sybase dropping SQL Anywhere (formerly Watcom SQL, now Adaptive Server Anywhere) early on after the 1995 acquisition, but nothing beyond apparently.

        The ASA engineering group (Waterloo Ontario) and ASE group (Dublin California) have worked together on joint projects, but the two products remain independently architected and developed. The main joint task forces seem to work(ed) on adding T-SQLisms to ASA and on the IQ product.

    • Watcom includes clones of CL.exe, NMAKE and LINK that allow you to put the watcom bin/include/lib folders at the head of the VC++ search path and use the Visual C++ ide to compile with watcom. Unfortunatly their a bit dated, but work fine with visual studio 5.0. They have begun to support newer flags and a maintainer that cares about such thing would probally be welcomed by the maintainers and community as a whole.
    • That reminds me. In high school we were working on a project, but ran into that issue.

      Watcom 10's tools had sucky UI (but awesome compiler with DOS4GW - a godsend). Borland (Turbo C++?) had a crappy compiler (but awesome UI).

      Solution? Link Borland's IDE to Watcom's tools. Worked like a charm.

  • Back in the day.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by teambpsi ( 307527 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:02PM (#7975356) Homepage
    This was THE compiler to use with RTLINK/plus to build protected mode video games -- okay, protected mode anything

    and the only reason we used protected mode?

    BIG RAM BABY

    thanks to the (in)famous 640k 'barrier'

    though to some extent i'm not sure how relevant the toolset is today....

  • DB? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by baldass_newbie ( 136609 )
    Any chance of the DB going Open Source? Or is Sybase holding that too close?
    I think that would be a great tool to have in Windows. Give MySQL a run for its money and could kill Access on the desktop.

    • Re:DB? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @04:40PM (#7978359) Homepage Journal
      Any chance of the DB going Open Source? Or is Sybase holding that too close?

      There's zero chance.

      RDBMS is the core business at Sybase. They'd have to completely redefine the company and its businss model. Watcom C++ is something they ended up with by pure accident, and were wise to unload.

      Watcom was acquired by PowerBuilder as part of the deal which got them Sql Anywhere (pretty much comparable and competitive with Interbase that begat Firebird). PowerBuilder needed a fairly robust database for the same reason Borland coupled Interbase with Delphi. PowerBuilder at one point threw Watcom SQL into some of their PowerBuilder configurations, and may have used parts of it in their native code generation. However, it wasn't really very key to their product strategy, it's just something they got with SQL Anywhere.

      Sybase, during one of its more feckless management period, puchased PowerBuilder. I don't know why, probably so they'd have a RAD platform to compete with Oracles forms products. In the process the obtained SQL Anywhere (nee Watcom SQL) and Watcom C++.

      SQL Anywhere was a secondary acquisition they got with PowerBuilder, but it actually (in some twisted way) made sense, since its low footprint allowed it to be deployed on mobile devices, giving Sybase a "small" database engine to compete with Oracle's "Personal" database, the way Adaptive Server Enterprise competes with Oracle's flagship database. They rechristened it Adaptive Server Anywhere (although they may have re-rechristened it yet again, since they seem to be very schizo about what they call this product). They also spun off a separate company to promote ASA in mobile apps.

      Watcom C++ was not only not a primary consideration in the PowerBuilder acquisition, it wasn't even secondary. It doesn't fit in with what Sybase does, even in a wild flight of imagination. Furthermore, by that time even they had no illusions that they might compete with Microsoft in Win32 compilers.

      So, in a rare fit of enlightenment, they opened the source rather than abandoning the users. One of the few product management decisions they've made that I agree with. It makes perfect, selfish sense: there's no value in maintaining the product, but they don't want to alienate customers. So just pass the buck to somebody who wants to maintain it, provide a little engineering help to extricate pieces with license problems, and write the expense off as PR.

    • Re:DB? (Score:3, Informative)

      by mobiGeek ( 201274 )
      Which RDBMS do you mean:

      Adaptive Server Enterprise [sybase.com]

      Adaptive Server Anywhere [ianywhere.com] (formerly Watcom SQL)

      IQ [sybase.com]

      Ah....MySQL and Access, you must be talking about ASA. I suspect it unlikely that ASA become open source in the foreseeable future as it is one of the key products [ianywhere.com] of iAnywhere [ianywhere.com].

      ASA is a much more feature rich and powerful replacement for both above mentioned database-like repositories ;-).

      For those who don't know, ASA runs on a multitude of platforms (Palm, CE, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HPUX, OS X, an

      • If I had mod points, I'd give you +1 informative.

        Sybase also offers free (as in beer) releases of older versions of Adaptive Server Enterprise. ASE 11.9.2 [sybase.com] is $0 for development use only, and ASE 11.0.3.3 [sybase.com] is $0 for development or production. Since 11.9.2 is now end-of-lifed, you can't purchase a license even if you wanted to. This makes it's usability on production systems somewhat ambiguous.

        There are also developer versions available as free downloads (registration required) for ASE 12.5.1 [sybase.com] and ASA 9.0 [ianywhere.com]

  • ... if you're a code masochist.

    Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, maybe I'll be the lonely voice in the wilderness, but for general purposes outside of a learning tool, I can't stand GCC. Why? There are so many reasons, I just don't know where to start.

    I hesitate a little to say this because everyone seems to speak so highly of it, at least everyone that I've ever heard. But I'm sorry, the Emperor has no clothes. Whenever I start a compile on GCC I can go downstairs, have dinner, watch an episode of the

    • Re:Well, there's always GCC ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @07:47PM (#7980397) Journal
      it's unfortunate that valid criticism gets censored. Pretending gcc shits diamonds won't make it so.

      Fact is, gcc uses more memory -- a LOT more memory -- than most other compilers, especially when optimizing. That makes it much more likely that you'll have to hit the swap file, which of course, kills your speed.

      Another problem is GNU make, while more flexible and powerful than the make systems for borland, msvc, etc, is also much slower. If you use something like jam instead, you'll see build times drop significantly.

      • Can we ask: why?

        GCC is one of the flagship products of the free software movement, but it seems to be clunkier and bloatier and less conforming than just about every commercial C++ compiler. How does the mantra 'open source is better' stand up to this?
      • WEll from what I can see GCC is moving inthe right direction, the new DFA pipeline descriptors will allow the optimizer to operate MUCH more efficiently (and they're easier to write!). GCC-3.4 has a lot of goodies for the AMD-K[7,8] series of CPUs.

        Development has always been and probably always will be one of the most demanding tasks you can do, even the most complex compiles on my machine (KDE, Glibc, Mozilla, etc.) max out at abot 70MB/process, which leaves me PLENTY of RAM to play with on a -j3 compile

  • Not really "open" source (Score:3, Interesting)

    by some guy I know ( 229718 ) on Thursday January 15, 2004 @01:53AM (#7982973) Homepage
    Unfortunately, the site has some really annoying webcode that prevents me from downloading it.
    I'd have to either enable JavaScript, which I refuse to do, or spend 15-20 minutes decoding the JavaScript and making my own fake responses, which I also refuse to do.
    Does anyone have any mirrors?
    • Isn't javascript open source ? I mean, you download the javascript source to run it. Why do you distrust javascript so much, when it is open ? You can review the code to determine what it is doing, and, if you are happy, enable it temporarily just for that web site.
      • It's possible to view the source, but it's not worth the trouble.

        I shouldn't have to run a script to get a file. It's like a mail-order company demanding that a salesman visit your home to place the order, rather than accepting it through mail from you.

        That said, it's better than Microsoft's equivalent in which you must give them the keys to your house and let them joyride your car before you can get software. Controlling a communist empire will get you the source code.

        • It's possible to view the source, but it's not worth the trouble.

          That's the trade off you have to decide upon. If you don't want to download it using the originator's methods, fair enough.

          That being said, I would consider asking somebody else to download and mirror it for you, presumably at their costs, ie. free to you, to be pretty selfish. You are asking somebody else to do something which you are not prepared to do yourself. You are asking them to take the "security risk" of this javascript code, t

          • When a website uses obfuscated JavaScript to do something that can easily be done with straight HTML, my tinfoil hat starts glowing.

            There are different levels of trust.
            The main problem with JavaScript is that it is used by all sorts of people/sites for all sorts of nefarious purposes.
            I know that this is guilt-by-association, but I am very paranoid in some areas, and this is one of them.
            This is why I am downloading the source code instead of their convenient executables, so that I can look through it to see
        • Your post is right on the money.

          I actually did spend a few minutes looking at the JS source to try to figure out what it does, so that I could "emulate" what it was doing manually.
          It looks to me like they have deliberately made an effort (albeit a small effort) to make it diffucult for people to do this.
          This leads me not to trust them enough to enable JS for their site.
          (I probably could have done it after 10-30 minutes, depending, but I got annoyed first.
          There may have also been problems because I also blo

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