Conference hydra::amiga_v1

There are 2 limits to the M2Amiga demo compiler, in that it cant produce
code with large code, and some of the nice library's you'd like to use
are missing.  I did find it usefull enough to produce some short example
code, and actually *buy* the full version. It was kinda hard to learn
how/what was in all the packages from the demo too. 

Modula-2 is an up and coming language, and I think you'll see more and more
stuff written for the Amiga in it soon.  M2Amiga is close to bomb proof,
with the only guru's I've had being mucking some internal things pretty
bad (like writting over DOSbase, trashing random memory, not replying to
msg's)

Robb

Re: .0

The library that you need, alink, a few other tools plus full documentation
on all Amiga library routines is available from Commodore for $20.  It is
called the "1.2 Native Developer's Update."  See note 864.3 for ordering
details.  If you plan to do any Amiga programming in any language, this is
a great buy.

However, this will not give you a C runtime library; it will merely give
to access to the Amiga's builtin routines.  In other words, you will not
be able to run any program you find in a C textbook that makes use of
the C runtime library (by doing I/O, for example).  You would be able to
do a great deal of Amiga specific programming.

I never tried to use that PD C compiler.  However, I am suspicious.  Doing
a "product quality" compiler  is hard (even for the low standards of the
pc marketplace).  Using a less than product quality compiler is nothing
but aggravation.  You may be getting what you paid for here.

You may want to try out the PD compiler (the price is right!).  It might
be one of those rare ones that is worthwhile.  However, I wouldn't get up
hopes up too high.

    I've been looking at using DRACO lately.  I'm in the same boat you
    are, i.e. no bucks.  Draco looks quite a bit like 'C'.  So, you'll
    have to learn all about 'C' to use this puppy.  I'm just starting
    on it, so I'm not that good at it.
    
    As far as the compiler goes, it looks excellent.  Eleventy-million
    include files, (note that some of these are almost, but not quite
    the same as the 'C' include files), BLink is included.  There are
    about a dozen or so examples, but only 3 or 4 are written with the
    amiga in mind.  The rest are ports from his CP/M version of the
    language.  NOTE: on one of the newest Fish disks (118 I think) the
    author has a version of Empire written in Draco.  Does anyone have
    this on the net?  I think that you could get a good idea for other
    programs and how the language works from looking at the source to
    this.
    
    					Rob

Re: .3

I forgot about Draco.  I didn't play with it but it looked like it
just might be one of the exceptions.

When I see a PD compiler that comes with useful programs that it
can compile, my faith in the compiler goes up.

Other possibilities are the Icon interpreter on Fish 81 (a port of
the Griswold interpreter), the Little Smalltalk on Fish 37 (there's
a companion book by the author, Tim Budd), and XLisp on Fish 39.

Gee, I state a few notes back that I am down on pd languages, then say
that three look pretty solid on first viewing.  Maybe I just don't
trust pd compilers but pd interpreters are OK.

    Re: Draco
    
    I spent almost $200 on the TDI Modula 2 package and it was some
    of the worst money I've ever spent.  I have no major gripes about the
    language itself, but TDI's implementation stinks.  So much so that
    it drove me to look at alternatives.  Not wanting to spend another
    $200 for either of the new M2 compilers, I decided to try the Draco
    compiler and I'm very pleased that I did.  It's very well done.
    The hooks into the Amiga system software appear to be complete.
    I've had no problems compiling Intuition based programs.  I admit
    that I've spent little time using the Graphic primitive routines,
    but those that I've used have worked just as expected.  Draco does
    look a bit like C, and indeed it's much easier to translate existing
    C code into it than into M2.  I've accomplished more with the Draco
    compiler in the month that I've been using it, than I've accomplished
    in more than a year of using the TDI compiler.
    
    Thumbs up for Draco, as long as you don't mind using a "non-standard"
    language.
    
    Gary

    Thanks for the answers guys, I guess I'll just get a hold of each
    and see how I get on..... (I've ordered the FF113 - M2Amiga).
    
    But does anyone have any clues about the AMIGA.LIB for PDC ?
    
    

Re: .6

>    But does anyone have any clues about the AMIGA.LIB for PDC ?

Read note .2.

    Sorry Randy,
    	I had read .2 , I should have said "AMIGA.LIB from FF9* ?"
    				Alan T.

Well I got FF113 on Friday and spent the weekend looking at M2Amiga, and
here are some of my first impressions.

Compiler: It works quite quickly considering the disk thrashing going on
I'm sure that this will be improved further using a second drive as well.
The compiler also produces excellent error messages.

Editor: a version of microemacs. Marvellous! it actually looks to see if
the machine is PAL or NTSC! and I get 30+ rows right off (mine's a PAL.)
There is a macro which ties the error message file to the source and you
just have to choose "Next M2 error" and the cursor is sent to the appropriate
place in the source and the error message is displayed at the bottom of
the screen.

Code: Well, I haven't had much time to do much of an evaluation, and the
only thing I have to compare it with is (interpreted) AmigaBasic, but here
goes:
I wrote a version of Conway's "Life" in AmigaBasic which ran at one generation
every 57 seconds (slow huh?), I then translated it, almost line for line,
to M2 and compiled it. This version runs 10 generations in 13 seconds and
I'm absolutely sure that there are several places where I can optimise.

On the whole I'm favourably impressed.


				Alan T.