| I have much experience with the TDI compiler, and it has many small
problems, I would be interested in your evaluation of FTL.
The biggest pain in the neck with TDI is their proprietary linker
format. Does FTL allow you to link ``foreign'' modules (C, assembler,
etc.)? This would be a huge win.
Further, how is the generated code? The TDI output is very rough...
optimization is not good (it never caches variables in registers,
for example). Does FTL include some way to look at the machine
code output?
Finally, does the GEM library support seem complete?
Steph
|
| Sorry about the delay in replying. I am a university student working
with Digital over the summer, and I have now left for my term, although
I am occasionally back in the office to carry out bug-fixes on the
code I have written (as I am today and tomorrow).
Regarding FTL. I am afraid it does use a proprietary linker, though
from memory I don't remember whether it knows about any other formats.
I will try and check this tonight and leave something on the system
tomorrow if I get any further. HOWEVER the package does include
a 68000 assembler which you can link to Modula-2 code, which seems
to be pretty good (I am not an assembler expert, so I have only
looked briefly at this).
I am also unable to help you regarding the generated code, I have
only recently bought my copy of FTL and haven't got that far into
it yet. However I did use the IBM PC version of the compiler for
some time and that did seem to produce very slick code (this is
entirely from the use-of point of view, not from a study of the
internals of the object code produced). I don't see why the ST version
should not be equally good.
One thing I do know is that the GEM support is very good. You can
call the GEM routines (including BIOS, ALINE etc.) using near standard
(ie C) calls, or you can use the FTL pre-packaged routines or a
mixture of the two. Very nice from the programmer's point of view.
A resource editor is also included though it is not the most
comprehensive ever.
All in all a fine package for the programmer.
Daniel Crow
|
| I have TDI Modula-2. It is very pro. I've used it for a couple
of things, including two ACCs. They were laborious to debug due
to the lack of a debugger. The Post-Mortem debugger is useless,
in my view. I ended up hooking my Epson PX8 portable onto the serial
line, to collect debug info squirted down the line from my ACC.
It's obviously a question of personal preference, but I strongly
recommend Prospero Fortran, or the new Lattice C.
Modula-2 (viz Pascal) is too 'typed' for my liking - I prefer
something more flexible.
Jim Burke
|