Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu [LWN.net]

Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu

Posted Jun 5, 2008 19:23 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786)
In reply to: Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu by and
Parent article: Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu

Regarding C code generation, C++ compilers were for many years just C 
pre-processors like Vala is now.  Vala is just younger (and prettier)  
language than C++, just give it time and it may grow into a real compiler 
like C++ compilers did.  Whether we need yet another language is another 
matter...

As to Gtk/Gobject and Qt, having programmed a little bit with both, 
there's much less difference between Gtk and Qt that with C and C++.  If 
you know Gtk & C, Qt itself is not a problem, but C++[1] can be.  Like 
Perl, it's a bit of a line noise compared to better designed languages 
(better designed meaning orthogonality etc, not performance & 
practicality).

[1] and Qt's moc variant of C++ with its magic defines.

(Log in to post comments)

Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu

Posted Jun 5, 2008 19:55 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The only C++ compiler I've ever heard of that used a C compiler as its 
code generator was Cfront (and even that was quite unusual: it wasn't a 
preprocessor in any sense, in that it did full translation and just 
happened to emit C code: that C could would never contain e.g. any syntax 
errors unless Cfront was buggy).

Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu

Posted Jun 5, 2008 21:06 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

> The only C++ compiler I've ever heard of that used a C compiler as its  
code generator was Cfront

I have some faint recollections that some other C++ compilers were derived 
from that and then there was also Glockenspiel C++ and stuff using the EDG 
C++ frontend like Comeau C++.


> (and even that was quite unusual: it wasn't a preprocessor in any sense, 
in that it did full translation and just  happened to emit C code:

Yes, sorry my terminology was bad.  But isn't this also how Vala works?

Mark Shuttleworth on the future of Ubuntu

Posted Jun 8, 2008 16:03 UTC (Sun) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]

Regarding C code generation, C++ compilers were for many years just C pre-processors like Vala is now. Vala is just younger (and prettier) language than C++, just give it time and it may grow into a real compiler like C++ compilers did. Whether we need yet another language is another matter...

There is a difference: Cfront *defines* its own object model, and because the C code it produces is not supposed to have a stable interface, it's easy to abandon C-code generation in favour of a full-blown compiler.

Vala, by design, targets the GObject type system (letting users write GObject applications much more naturally than writing them in C). I don't think we'll ever get to a situation where valac's backend does not actually generate straight C code..