Date   : Thu, 10 Oct 1985 20:04:10 GMT
From   : Ted Medin <medin%noscvax.uucp@BRL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Looking for WATFOR compiler

In article <1980@brl-tgr.ARPA> young@UCI-ICSC.ARPA (Michal Young) writes:
>
>WATFOR was NOT first implemented on the SuperPET. It's immediate successor,
>WATFIV, is mentioned in the 1979 edition of the dragon book (Aho and
>Ullman), so WATFOR was around a long time before SuperPET. The version I am
>aware of was available on IBM mainframes and was not an interpreter;  it was
>a very fast compiler optimized for handling multiple compiles submitted in a
>batch.  It was specially designed for student use, concentrating on quick
>compile and good error checking rather than optimized object code.  

 I believe you are wrong about the interpreter part. But you are right about
all the rest. It was the best diagnostic compiler/interpreter I have ever
worked with.