pa1329@sdcc13.ucsd.EDU (pa1329) (10/07/89)
Does anyone know if any ST C compliers will be upgraded to ANSI standard? Do Megamax, Mark Williams or other companies have plan to upgrade their C compilers? Any info is appreciated.
krieg@gemed.uucp (Andrew Krieg) (10/07/89)
In article <1267@sdcc13.ucsd.EDU>, pa1329@sdcc13.ucsd.EDU (pa1329) writes: > Does anyone know if any ST C compliers will be upgraded to ANSI > standard? Do Megamax, Mark Williams or other companies have plan > to upgrade their C compilers? Any info is appreciated. MWC (Mark Williams) will probably upgrade as soon as the ANSI draft proposal is adopted. They already publish an "ANSI C" manual which contains everything in a lexicon format (sorta like their regular C manual). They are ready to go as soon as it is passed. Does anyone know if any major (or minor) changes have been included in the draft proposal? The MWC manual is copyrighted 1988 and I was wondering if it would still be worth buying. ========================================================================= = = = The Marvel Historian A. Krieg = = = = G.E. Medical Systems - CT - New Berlin, WI = = USENET: krieg@jupiter.med.ge.com = = = =========================================================================
7103_300@uwovax.uwo.ca (10/07/89)
In article <1267@sdcc13.ucsd.EDU>, pa1329@sdcc13.ucsd.EDU (pa1329) writes: > Does anyone know if any ST C compliers will be upgraded to ANSI > standard? Do Megamax, Mark Williams or other companies have plan > to upgrade their C compilers? Any info is appreciated. The public domain GNU C Compilier already supports the ANSI standard. It's available from dsrgsun.ces.cwru.edu (129.22.16.2) by anonymous FTP. The major drawback of the GCC is that it needs a lot of memory; 1 megabyte is the absolute bare minimum, 2 megabytes is a more reasonable amount. -- Eric R. Smith ersmith@uwovax.uwo.ca Dept. of Mathematics University of Western Ontario
t19@nikhefh.nikhef.nl (Geert J v Oldenborgh) (10/08/89)
Turbo C is pretty much ANSI. Besides, it compiles faster and produces better code then any of the other C compilers, as far as I know. I know a guy who sweated for a month to get his symbolic manipulation program 10% faster and then gained another 10-15% by switching from MWC to Turbo...
jlong@blackbird.afit.af.mil (Jeffrey K. Long) (10/09/89)
I have Prospero-C and it is "...a complete implemention of the proposed
ANSI standard for C for use on the Atari-ST range of computers"
(quoted from the back of the box it came in)
It is a very complete package, comes with a debuger and a nice gem based
shell to work from. I used it to port some IBM stuff written for
Turbo-C V2.0 (Bibtex V0.99c) and the port was almost trivial!!
It has excellent documentation (almost 1000 pages in 4 separate spiral
notebooks) and is very robust, I haven't had a single crash from the
shell yet! The only real drawback with it is that it isn't exactly a speed
demon!! But it runs fine on my 1meg machine and hard drive
I recommend it to anyone with only 1meg and who wants a 100% ANSI-C
compliant compiler :-)
No, I don't work for them (see signature block :-))
=========================================================================
| Jeff Long jlong@afit-af.mil (ARPA net) |
| |
| humble (and getting humbler by the day) graduate student; |
| The Air Force Institute of Technology (what a great way of life??) |
=========================================================================adw3345@ultb.UUCP (A.D. Williams) (10/10/89)
Someone asked if MWC was worth buying although it is not ANSI and ANSI
C is sure to be passed in the future.
The big point about ANSI C is that one compiler will run on another
compiler with no changes in libraries, etc. ANSI helps clear up the
points K & R were vague about and hence a cause for differences between
compilers.
Now the way I see it is that MWC follows the ANSI C standard in spirit
(I.e., Structures can be passed as a parameter rather than a pointer),
and unless your code is going to have a wide distribution over different
machines, you won't *absolutely* need ANSI.
I have been using MWC for about 2 years, and I have learned a lot about
C as well as the Atari ST. I use it for my own purposes, and it is rare
that I need to compile it on a different machine, as I use MWC for many
Atari-specific programs. I think people holding their breath for ANSI
are thinking "If I only had ANSI, I will be able to do *anything!*".
That's what I felt like before I started writing "serious" code (i.e.,
big programs that did something useful, etc.). First I thought I
*needed* a hard drive before I could get anything done, then I *needed*
a time chip (for Make), before I realized I didn't actually need them to
write a "Hello World" program.
You may actually need an ANSI compiler (Prospro provides one), but I
think the vast majority of would-be Atari Programmers will do well to
get MWC (or any other compiler), even if it doesn't have ANSI.
Derrick
.sig under construction.
covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (10/10/89)
In article <1379@blackbird.afit.af.mil>, jlong@blackbird.afit.af.mil (Jeffrey K. Long) writes: > I have Prospero-C and it is "...a complete implemention of the proposed > ANSI standard for C for use on the Atari-ST range of computers" > (quoted from the back of the box it came in) > Jeff Long, how complete is the GEM AES/VDI Library in the Prospero C compiler?? I am currently using Mark Williams C, version 3.09, but it isn't ANSI compatible, and isn't even all that UNIX compatible (no signal() for example). Does the Prospero compiler have a rich set of UNIX style lib functions?? How does it handle floating point arithmetic?? Can it use the math coprocessor chip, if installed?? MWC doesn't. How close to the draft ANSI standard is Prospero?? Is the processor compliant?? Where the heck is Prospero?? How good is there technical support?? How compatible is the Prospero compiler with the Laser C compiler?? Can I compile Laser C code with the Prosero?? I can't with MWC (different header files, libs etc). To defend Mark Williams a little, while their C compiler is rapidly aging, MWC offers excellent technical support, including an 800 number. MWC responds to technical bugs quickly. I was having an interaction problem with PINHEAD which was causing the MWC Resource Editor to bomb. I called MWC to report that their RSC EDitor was bombing and they returned my call within a day. It turned out to be a problem with PINHEAD and not the MWC RSC Editor, but I didn't know that when I called MWC. And the MWC C ompiler manual is a goldmine of sample C code for GEM AES/VDI routines!! I am constantly referring to the manual! So, I would be less then willing to drop MWC, but it would be great to have a ANSI C compiler!! Richard Covert