When I started learning C++, there was't a C++ compiler available for my Atari ST (late 80s), there was only Borland C. So instead I used the C preprocessor to emulate classes, virtual functions etcetera. Not everything could be implemented this way, but it looked like C++ close enough for me to learn it.
That's basically how C++ was originally created, or the prototype, "C with Classes", albeit with a custom preprocessor. [0]
> In October of 1979 I had a pre− processor, called Cpre, that added Simula− like classes to C run-ning and in March of 1980 this pre− processor had been refined to the point where it supported onereal project and several experiments.
Recognising that you could do it that way is kinda awesome. Maybe not entirely uncommon, but you drafted a powerful bit of software yourself.
Thanks, awesome paper (which remind me that I should read the ARM at some point).
Interesting stuff:
"Cfront [the fist c++ compiler] was (and is) a traditional compiler front− end performing a complete check of the syntax and semantics of the language"
"[...] the C compiler is used as a code generator only. [...]. I stress
this because there has been a long history of confusion about what Cfront was/is. It has been called a preprocessor because it generates C, and for people in the C community (and elsewhere) that has been taken as proof that Cfront was a rather simple program – something like a macro preprocessor."
Cfront being a preprocessor is something that gets repeated often. As you correctly point out, cpre was the preprocessor and it wasn't realy C++ yet.
> C-- (pronounced cee minus minus) is a C-like programming language. Its creators, functional programming researchers Simon Peyton Jones and Norman Ramsey, designed it to be generated mainly by compilers for very high-level languages rather than written by human programmers. Unlike many other intermediate languages, its representation is plain ASCII text, not bytecode or another binary format.[1][2]
> There are two main branches of C--. One is the original C-- branch, with the final version 2.0 released in May 2005.[3] The other is the Cmm fork actively used by the Glasgow Haskell Compiler as its intermediate representation.[4]
Yes. In addition to C--, there is a long tradition of FP (and not only) languages targeting C as a (portable) back end representation. That's how many scheme compilers worked for example. LLVM itself at some point had a C backend.
