Re: Struct in C and C++
Greg wrote:
[...]
Actually the first C++ compiler was itself written in C++ - which
might sound like a chicken-and-egg impossibility were it not for one
fact: the first C++ compiler (CFront) did not actually compile C++
source code (including its own) directly - rather it first translated
C++ source code into C and then compiled the translated sources with
a C compiler. Pretty simple, isn't it?
I think you're confused. "Compile C++" and "translate C++" are pretty
much the same thing. So, how could it have been written in C++? What
would be used to translate its own code from C++ "into C"? And if it
wasn't used itself, what was used? And if, in fact, some other thing
was used, what do you call it if not "C++ translator"? And what was
that thing written in? Catch my drift? There is no "chicken and egg"
problem. The "chicken and egg" conundrum exists when there is circular
dependency. There is none here. First C++ compiler/translator was
most likely written in C (or C With Classes or some other predecessor
of the "real C++"). After than each next version of a C++ compiler is
written in C++ probably (because the C++ compiler programmers know C++
the best), and any new advanced features the next version implements
are simply not used to write it (because the compiler does not support
them). That's just evolution of tools. For example, what debugger is
used to debug a debugger?
V
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