Re: [DotGNU]Licence question about GNU and GCC

[James Michael DuPont]

Norbert,
> But in the case of GCC there is a potentially
serious strategic
> problem,of giving proprietary compiler vendors a
gratis optimizing super-assembler.
True.

> But if proprietary-minded users of your work would
get no significant advantage
> over using C code as a intermediate representation
> (which is something that they can do anyway) then
perhaps you don't need to worry so much.  

The usage of closed source frontend is IMHO not the
biggest problem. (But look at objective c!)
One major problem is that of a closed source backend
that would undermine the priciple of gcc having so
many good backends... that is a real danger.

> You mean, use (parts of) gcc to create an AST and
> then use pnet to translate the AST into bytecode?  
Yes, That crossed my mind. 

In the other direction :
use the DOTGNU to feed the asts into gcc for code
generation.

>I note
> that http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/ast-optimizer.html
> talks only about C and C++.  Are there other
> languages
> where gcc also translates entire functions into an
> AST?
Good question! I am only looking at c for now.

> C and C++ are for language reasons very difficult to
> compile to verifiable bytecode, and this is a
> problem that we can't get around by starting from an
> AST instead of starting from source code.

Ok, those where the motivating reasons for creation of
java. Pointers! Inline Asm... Typecasts of Block of
memorys.... 

Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my!

Gruß,
mike

=====
James Michael DuPont

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