3 ms·
gcc really was a game changer. Software tools used to be really expensive. I remember in the 1980's buying both Rational System's Instant-C and WATCOM-C (32-bi
by HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
gcc really was a game changer.
Software tools used to be really expensive. I remember in the 1980's buying both Rational System's Instant-C and WATCOM-C (32-bit DOS compiler) each for many hundreds of dollars before switching to free Linux and gcc.
Instant-C was, at the time, a magical kind of product. It was basically a C interpreter that could resolve undefined symbols at runtime - run your program then write a function and continue if it was missing. You edited code by function rather than by file, so everything was incremental and instantaneous, a big contrast to the normal experience back then of kicking off a big build and practicing your juggling while it progressed..
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cenamus 3y agoWas there a connection to any Lisps? Cause that sounds extremely like the interactive developement process there
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoI don't know if that was part of the inspiration or not - I don't recall Rational themselves selling LISP. It was really just a way to speed up the whole compile-link-debug cycle. It was only a relatively short-lived product - I suppose since the speed of Turbo-C provided much of the same benefit.
- anthk 3y agoA LISP 'repl' environment (read-eval-print-loop) works exactly like that. Stop on an error, fix it, continue like nothing. Unix and C where designed to fault/abort fast on errors, and showing no output on good behaviour.