daveb@geac.UUCP (Brown) (08/27/87)
In article <138@kesmai.COM> dca@kesmai.COM (David C. Albrecht) writes: >Well then if DEC is unenthusiastic about C the people responsible for unix >(B&B) must be somnabulistic since the VAX C compiler beats the pants >off of pcc. As it happens, the DEC Vax C compiler shares an intermediate language and a back end with the PL/1 compiler (source: book by the implementors). Since the PL/1 compiler front end was a licenced copy of the Multics one, the design of the intermediate language was quite competent (especially for its era), and it is easy to write a globally optimizing back end/code generator. Which is exactly what they did... Dare I suggest this may have something to do with "volatile"? -- David Collier-Brown. {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb Geac Computers International Inc., | Computer Science loses its 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, | memory (if not its mind) CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 | every 6 months.