On 7/19/12 7:01 AM, dave shields wrote: > Hi, > > My name is Dave Shields. I am the co-author -- with Philippe Charles -- > of Jikes. > Released in December 1998, Jikes was IBM's first open-source project. As > part of that effort I helped IBM draft its first open-source license: > the Jikes License. That license was later replaced by the IBM Public > License. Both were approved by OSI. > > I am currently the maintainer of Macro SPITBOL. I just completed the > port to Linux, which can be found at > http://github.com/daveshields/spitbol-linux. > > Almost forty years old, SPITBOL is the most efficient implementation of > the SNOBOL programming language yet created. It is written in a portable > assembly language called Minimal. The language was carefully crafted to > give the implementor great freedom in productng an efficient translation > to the assembly language of the target machine. The runtime unterface to > the OS is written in C. > > I would like to port SPITBOL to OS X. As part of that effort, I have > paid -- out of my own pocket -- to become an Apple Developer. I also > paide over a thousand smackeroos to buy a refurbished 13" Macbook. I say > after only a couple of days of use that is the best laptop I have ever > used, bar none. > > SPITBOL was ported in the 80's and 90's to the Mac, Solaris, and AIX. > > I did the port for the CDC 6600 in the mid 70's and was the co-author of > IBM PC Spitbol, released in late 1983. > > Though I have used Unix for almost forty years, I am new to OS X, and > would appreciate help from any interested party. > > I also plan to port SPITBOL to iOS, esp. the iPhone and iPad. That will > be more challenging, as it will involve learning assembler language for > the processors used in those products. I would of course also appreciate > help from any interested party in this task. > > SPITBOL is not only extraordinaly efficient, it is compact. For example, > it contains a mark-sweep compacting garbage collector that takes about > 200 lines of code. > > The assembler code consists of under 15,000 lines of assembly language > once the comments have been removed. Keeping the comments in doubles the > size to about 30,000 lines of the most impressive assembly-language > program I have ever seen. > > Moreover, I -- and others who have used the system -- can attest that no > project is more fun. Not only is using the language, but in working on > its implementation. > > By the way, many thanks for all you work on this project. > > I wrote my first program in the late 50's, while still in high school. I > have been an active open-source developer for over a decade. > > While most folks think that writing software is just a matter of typing > away to implement a new idea, those of us who do write software know > there is *lots* of grunt work involved. Things that, while not exciting, > must be done. > > Fink is a great example of such an effort. While some mike think it an > easy task, I spent most of the 70's working on writing portable software > while at the Courant Institute at NYU. Though it is much easier now, > it's still now trivial. > > The number of packages you have ported is an extraordinary testament to > the thousands and thousands of hours of programmer time involved. > > Thanks again, and keep up your good work. > > dave > > > > > >
Hi. Sorry for the delayed reply--I've been busy with Fink issues related to the release of OS 10.8. The Fink distribution provides a number of different hacks that have been needed to deal with the idiosyncrasies of OS X. When this involves outright patching, we either use diff files and 'patch', or shell scripts using awk, perl, sed, .... There's definitely some experience in such issues here. -- Alexander Hansen, Ph.D. Fink User Liaison My package updates: http://finkakh.wordpress.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Fink-devel mailing list Fink-devel@lists.sourceforge.net List archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.os.apple.fink.devel Subscription management: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-devel
