The requirements for "flex and yacc" seem to indicate that this is from a time and culture before recursive descent/precedence climbing became the norm.
Amsterdam Compiler Kit
31–40 of 75 posts
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The book version is a subset of Minix version 3.1.0 (see https://github.com/rochus-keller/Minix3/tree/3.1.0 ). The sursprise comes when you try to compile the minimal book version and find out that it is not as lean as presented in the book but actually depends on hundereds of assembler files (see https://github.com/rochus-keller/Minix3/tree/Minix3_Book_TCC ).
I’m a tad confused so maybe I’m not understanding the horror show. Tanenbaum explicitly mentions multiple times that the book is a subset of the code because it would be too long to print with the library. So he covers mostly the main areas. But the source code, in its entirety, is mounted under /usr/src. And it has all the assembly files in ACK files, mostly in lib I believe. You can compile it with a make command a…
The author writes in the book explicitly "This is a modified version of config.h for compiling a small Minix system with only the options described in the text". This leaves no doubt that the book indeed describes a working microkernel of less than 15kSLOC which can be built and run (even if the "small Minix" lacks a few features). I blieved the author (like generations of other scholars) until I tried to actually build and run it myself.
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The relevant bit: " Shortly before beginning the GNU Project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple target machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it. He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but t…
Re your last paragraphs: I think RMS really meant just the Linux kernel when he wrote that(the topic is drivers, after all), not GNU/Linux, the OS or GNU/Linux, "the system". So it can be argued that he isn't really contradicting himself
Agreed. As a practical example, Alpine Linux isn't a GNU/Linux OS, but it does use Linux+Xorg graphics drivers.
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The relevant bit: " Shortly before beginning the GNU Project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple target machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it. He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but t…
the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) I'm not sure if I'm reading satire or they are having some fun trolling.
The adjective meaning "free" is "vrij" or "vrije" in Dutch.
Amusingly, the Dutch verb "vrijen" does, in fact, mean to have sex.
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The relevant bit: " Shortly before beginning the GNU Project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple target machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it. He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but t…
the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) I'm not sure if I'm reading satire or they are having some fun trolling.
Of course RMS understood the overtone perfectly, but Vrije Universiteit (vu.nl) is the real name of the university. Its name can be translated to "liberated university". As I understand it, it's a free university in the sense that historically, students of all religions were eligible to attend, as opposed to e.g. Katholieke Universiteit which was Catholic.
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
The relevant bit: " Shortly before beginning the GNU Project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple target machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it. He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but t…
I was one of those students saving up the large sum for the book, when Linux was announced. There were other tensions at the time - the biggest was that Minix on 8086 was 16 bit real mode only. Someone had developed patches to run in 32 bit protected mode, but they were invasive and large, and the Minix maintainers would not integrate them as the increased complexity would not help the mission of Minix being easy to…
Terrible mistakes. People keep repeating these mistakes. Makes me think of Larry McVoy.
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) I'm not sure if I'm reading satire or they are having some fun trolling.
The adjective meaning "free" is "vrij" or "vrije" in Dutch. Amusingly, the Dutch verb "vrijen" does, in fact, mean to have sex.
You really just made an account now to make that point?
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#38Is this the same compiler that famously spurred Richard Stallman to create GCC [1] when its author "responded derisively, stating that the university was free but the compiler was not"? It seems to be free now anyway, since 2005 according to the git history, under a 3-clause BSD license. [1] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.en.html
The relevant bit: " Shortly before beginning the GNU Project, I heard about the Free University Compiler Kit, also known as VUCK. (The Dutch word for “free” is written with a v.) This was a compiler designed to handle multiple languages, including C and Pascal, and to support multiple target machines. I wrote to its author asking if GNU could use it. He responded derisively, stating that the university was free but t…
> I love it how RMS has both these quotes in the same text:
>
> "Please don't fall into the practice of calling the whole system “Linux,” since that means attributing our work to someone else. Please give us equal mention."
>
> "This makes it difficult to write free drivers so that Linux and XFree86 can support new hardware."
>
> And there are only a few lines between those quotes.
I'll be honest, I don't understand your point here?
Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#39Re: Amsterdam Compiler Kit
#40It's interesting that they have a Raspberry Pi GPU backend, but neither an ARM backend nor any modern ISA. (such as x86-64, Aarch64, etc.) Is there any example program that actually runs on the rpi gpu? I skimped the website, but it is only mentioned in the release notes.
Presumably someone wanted to write an RPi bootloader, which run on the GPU. Several universities have OS programming courses that use old 32-bit RPis. Not sure if anything was actually written though.