Date   : Wed, 06 Oct 1982 08:44:14 EST (Wednesday)
From   : Mike Meyer <mwm@Okc-Unix>
Subject: Re: C Compilers

The first version of the Whitesmith C compiler had three problems. First,
it was HUGE  (I have it from an insider that the compiler was never meant
to run on CP/M - it just happened to fit). Second, the I/O library mentioned
by tj@okc-unix.  Third - support (especially for CP/M) wasn't very good.

I never saw what the support for CP/M was like. I worked with the VMS version
of the compiler for a short while, and we had lot's of trouble with it, and
with support. Hearsay evidence  suggusts that the problem was agravated if
you had a CP/M version.  See the BDS C Users Group Small C distribution for
some comments.

There is a new version of the Whitesmiths compiler out. From what I have heard,
it fixes the I/O library problems and some (relatively) minor problems with
initializers that appeared in the first compiler. Since I've never seen
anything
on the compiler, I won't garuntee these things.

As for the `ucb' extentions, I have never seen ANY non-Unix compiler that tried
to add any of the nice things added to C by Ritchie not documented in the
K & R book (structure assignments/passing/returning, enums), or the
ucb things (arbitrary-length assignments), or even the misc stuff from
other people (classes). It looks like K & R defined `C' for the non-bell
world, and anything added to the language after that won't be see anywhere
but on a Unix system. *sigh*

       mike