[M3devel] "target specific pragmas"?

[Darko]

Possibly, but it's a worthy goal. M3 should be deployable on any platform.
Too much of the discussion lately seems to be tieing the language to
particular platforms, we should be pushing the other way. I'm insterested
in working toward a distribution which has no platform APIs, only native
M3 interfaces with native strings, traced references only and range
checked and enumaterated everything. We should be looking to absact away C
interfaces at a low level, not permeate upwards.


> My principle concern is that once we provide C APIs then C will
> permeate the M3 space more pervasively (both apps and libraries).
> What happens when I want to bring up a system where there is no
> C?!?!  Consider the SPIN OS perhaps...
>
> Maybe I am just being overly fusty...
>
> On Feb 12, 2008, at 4:35 PM, Dragiša Durić wrote:
>
>> What we _maybe_ can do... is to make some special, preprocessable
>> source
>> form, which some quake command can parse into multiple files in their
>> folders. And these file can be compiled later...Kind of how generic
>> works.
>>
>> But, as current system works, and it does it very well, and as only
>> case
>> where we really need this is Windows... most Unices being or becoming
>> POSIX... I don't see it's smart to spend resources on becoming more
>> C...
>> Esp when "founding fathers" made it so good and so much non-C :).
>>
>> If we really need to make some approach to "their world", it's much
>> better to work on interoperability issues and thus cement our
>> first-class-citizen language status even more.
>>
>> dd
>>
>> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 15:16 -0500, Randy Coleburn wrote:
>>> Jay:
>>>
>>> My understanding of Modula-3 is that rather than cluttering up the
>>> source code with a bunch of preprocessor directives to deal with the
>>> various changes needed by various platforms, a separate source
>>> file is
>>> used for platforms whose implementation must diverge.  The m3makefile
>>> is used to control the selection of these platform sources at build
>>> time.  I like this approach much better.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Randy
>>>
>>>>>> Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com> 2/11/2008 8:21 PM >>>
>>> So I have NOT thought this through.
>>>
>>> I wonder if "preprocessing" dependent only on "target" is a good
>>> idea.
>>>
>>> Something like either the ability to prefix pragmas with a target, or
>>> an "iftarget" and "ifnottarget" pragma.
>>>
>>> Something like so:
>>>
>>> <* IF_TARGET NT386 *>
>>> <* END_IF_TARGET*>
>>>
>>>
>>> <* IF_TARGET NT386 *>
>>> <* END_IF_TARGET*>
>>> It's a small can of worms.
>>> Where can they be placed? Only at "global" scope? (ie: toplevel in an
>>> interface/module).
>>>
>>> What about IF_OSTYPE?
>>> What about expressions?
>>> IF_TARGET NT386 OR NTAMD64
>>>
>>> IF_TARGET STARTS(NT)
>>>
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> I don't really have enough interest here to work through this, just
>>> sending out the bait...
>>>
>>> Obviously this was triggered by my happening into the odbc directory
>>> and bringing up ignoring WINAPI on non-NT386 or prefixing calling
>>> conventions with a target.
>>>
>>> This reminds me of an important point here however -- nobody else is
>>> going to make the mistake of ever having multiple calling
>>> conventions.
>>> Therefore the generality of prefixing WINAPI with NT386: is useless.
>>> Unless Mac68K support is added.
>>>
>>> And here is some rationale even. The PC and Mac evolved from "small"
>>> systems, where assembly programming was common, more people knew more
>>> lower level details and playing games with calling conventions was
>>> something anyone could do. Most other current systems are rooted in C
>>> programming. Working in C, calling conventions are generally in a
>>> hidden layer below what anyone thinks about. Therefore, the smaller
>>> number of capable people working at that level have the good sense to
>>> only have one calling convention. No more systems will evolve from
>>> "small", at least not without having observed this history.
>>> Therefore,
>>> there will no longer be multiple calling conventions.
>>>
>>> That is my theory at least.
>>>
>>> Oh, Windows does also have __thiscall and __clrcall. __thiscall is
>>> only x86
>> --
>> Dragiša Durić <dragisha at m3w.org>
>
>