Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

On Sun, 13 Oct 2024 15:30:03 -0000 (UTC)
cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) boring babbled:

In article <vegmul$ne3v$1@dont-email.me>,  <Muttley@DastartdlyHQ.org> wrote:

So what is standard terminology then?

>
I've already explained this to you.

No you haven't. You explanation seems to be "anything that converts from one
language to another".

What happens inside the CPU is irrelevant. Its a black box as far as the
rest of the machine is concerned. As I said in another post, it could be
pixies with abacuses, doesn't matter.

>
So why do you think it's so important that the definition of a

Who said its important? Its just what most people think of as compilers.

CPU"?  If, as you admit, what the CPU does is highly variable,
then why do you cling so hard to this meaningless distinction?

You're the one making a big fuss about it with pages of waffle to back up
your claim.

[lots of waffle snipped]

>
In other words, you discard anything that doesn't fit with your
preconceptions.  Got it.

No, I just have better things to do on a sunday than read all that. Keep
it to the point.

So its incomplete and has to revert to software for some opcodes. Great.
FWIW Sun also had a java processor but you still can't run bytecode on
normal hardware without a JVM.

>
Cool.  So if I run a program targetting a newer version of an
ISA is run on an older machine, and that machine lacks a newer
instruction present in the program, and the CPU generates an
illegal instruction trap at runtime that the OS catches and
emulates on the program's behalf, the program was not compiled?
>
And again, what about an emulator for a CPU running on a
different CPU?  I can boot 7th Edition Unix on a PDP-11
emulator on my workstation; does that mean that the 7the
edition C compiler wasn't a compiler?

Its all shades of grey. You seem to be getting very worked up about it.
As I said, most people consider a compiler as something that translates source
code to machine code and writes it to a file.

Why, whats the difference? Your definition seems to be any program that can
translate from one language to another.

>
If you can't see that yourself, then you're either ignorant or
obstinant.  Take your pick.

So you can't argue the failure of your logic then. Noted.

Yes, they're entirely analoguous.
>
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/appdev.112/e10825/pc_02prc.htm

>
Nah, not really.

Oh nice counter arguement, you really sold your POV there.

Who cares about the current state? Has nothing to do with this discussion.

>
In other words, "I don't have an argument, so I'll just lamely
try to define things until I'm right."

Im just defining things the way most people see it, not some ivory tower
academics. Anyway, lifes too short for the rest.

[tl;dr]

that a compiler is pretty much any program which translates from one thing to
another.

>
No.  It translates one computer _language_ to another computer
_language_.  In the usual case, that's from a textual source

Machine code isn't a language. Fallen at the first hurdle with that
definition.