OpenWatcom C++ Compiler Code Finally Released

udif writes: "Almost 2 years after it was originally announced, the first drop of the OpenWatcom C++ source code is here. 18,000 files, 78MB uncompressed source code (about 28MB compressed). It's version 0.80 and is incomplete, but most of the code is here."

Comments

ANSI Conformant?

[jungd]

How does it compare to gcc? kcc?
export keyword?

Re:ANSI Conformant?

[WatcomGuru]

Not ANSI conformant and export keyword not implemented. The only C++ compiler that is fully conformant and the first that supports export is Edison Design Group. See comp.lang.c++.moderated.

Re:ANSI Conformant?

[Anonymous Coward]

aarrrgh!

export, while being a C++ keyword, is a qualifier for the *object* file. The ELF object file format exports all symbols. Even if gcc supported export, it wouldn't do linux/ELF any good.

OpenWatcom Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you compile and run a "Hello World" example in C or C++ yet?

To build OpenWatcom, where do you get the OpenWatcom binaries?

I heard at one time that Win-OS2, the Windows 3.1 that came with OS/2, was compiled using Watcom C because IBM considered Watcom C the faster compiler over their own and Microsoft's.

Is anybody considering to "port" OpenWatcom to Linux?

I noticed that the Windows and OS/2 compilers will be included. What about DOS and the DOS 32-bit Extender? Are the compilers for other platforms going to be included?

Thanks for your answers,
Daniel

Re:OpenWatcom Questions

[greenius]

I would love to se the Watcom Debugger ported to Linux. If you like visual debuggers then I think Watcom hsa some features missing from Microsoft Visual Studio debugger.

Rather than try to port the whole compiler to Linux it might be better to try and get Watcom and Gcc to work together for example by supporting the same object file formats.

Re:OpenWatcom Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. I don't know what you mean..
I use WDBG for work every day, and it's not *that* good. I really miss Borland (5.02!) debugger. It was _much_ better to debug code while in IDE.

of course I'm not using WDBG to it's full extent, like over serial or things like that. Just simple go-go-go-enter-enter-inspect-escape things.
Ah, shit, maybe I should just RTFM and find out that I've been missing many great things all this time (or that default installation .cfg misses most of functionality. It happens..)

Re:OpenWatcom Questions

[WatcomGuru]

>> Can you compile and run a "Hello World" example in C or C++ yet? > To build OpenWatcom, where do you get the OpenWatcom binaries? > Is anybody considering to "port" OpenWatcom to Linux? > I noticed that the Windows and OS/2 compilers will be included. What about DOS and the DOS 32-bit Extender? > Are the compilers for other platforms going to be included? Yes and currently are.

Re:OpenWatcom Questions

[SWTP]

I had hard that but most of the DOS based games for the PC were compiles using Watcom. Even Microsoft provided stuff to use Watcom under WinG and early DirectX.

Hum. I asume you are refering to DOS4GW? Been a while but I think all it was was a link with the programmer doing calls through somthing but not really direct to DOS4GW.

Aug for those days of "owning" the machine! Not this mess Microsoft created!

Good news for TeraTerm users

[Ashurbanipal]

Teraterm is an excellent open-source terminal emulator for Windows machines, which Robert O'Callahan has extended to incorporate SSH.

The two problems with TeraTerm are:
1) the weird license prohibits distributing any fixes to the core code (you can only distribute add-ons, which it supports). Luckily the core is not buggy, it's just got some areas where improvements could be made.
2) it reportedly compiles best under Watcom C/C++, which was (until now) a rare beasty.

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[bconway]

The BIGGER problem with Teraterm is that the SSH module doesn't and won't implement SSH v2. At this point SSH v1 is about as secure as telnet and should be disabled unless there is a reason that makes it absolutely necessary. I think it's safe to say that by now PuTTY, which progresses at an amazing rate, has claimed any market share that Termaterm had among the freeware SSH clients. It is an excellent tool.

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[g4dget]

I find the notion of a C++ program that "compiles best" under some compiler pretty odd. It may be true, but that's really only half the story.

The full story is something like "Program X uses a bunch of non-standard compiler extensions that only Compiler Y implements" or "Program X uses some really obscure standards-compliant feature that only Compiler Y implements correctly" or "Program X relies on the implementation-specific memory layout implemented by Compiler Y".

Since GNU C++ is quite good when it comes to standards compliance, I suspect that if a program "compiles best" under Watcom C++, it must be using some non-standard or unportable features. Does anybody know for sure?

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[0x0d0a]

Since GNU C++ is quite good when it comes to standards compliance

I'm not sure how it compares to other compilers, but g++ certainly has its share of nonstandard extensions. No compiler is innocent when it comes to being extension-free. :-)

void foo (int a) { int b[a]; }, for instance, really isn't kosher, but gcc/g++ allow it.

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[g4dget]

Having extensions usually doesn't make a compiler non-compliant (GNU compilers usually also have a "strict ANSI mode"). Using extensions makes a program non-compliant.

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[larry bagina]

1. All compilers have bugs, quirks, and different optimizing algorithms. If your portable C++ code makes use of advanced template features, and only watcom will compile it or generate proper code, the fullstory may be that other compilers are not up to snuff.
2. When the compiler competition was fiercer, compilers would recognize certain patterns and generate very aggressively optimized code so they'd look good in the benchmarks. If your code is similar to drystones, and Watcom produces the best drystone code, Watcom might generate the fastest code
3. Most people develop with one compiler only. If I develop under Watcom, and did my debugging under watcom, it might work best under Watcom because of differences in the libraries, OSes and APIs used would cause problems
4. GCC uses a 32-bit integer (most of the time). If you're developing for MSDOS, you might want to use 16-bit integers. Or maybe you need support for 64-bit integers or 128-bit integers. The C spec tells the relative sice of the types, not absolute, so different integer sizes, assumptions about packing of fields within a struct, byte alignment, endian issues, etc, may be non-portable, but they're not invalid if you are using a specific compiler and don't want 30 lines of #ifdefs for every possible compiler and architecture.

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[dvdeug]

Teraterm [vector.co.jp] is an excellent open-source terminal emulator for Windows machines [...] 1) the weird license prohibits distributing any fixes to the core code

Then it's not open-source, is it?

Re:Good news for TeraTerm users

[Anonymous Coward]

if you want portability, you do not look at c++, and you can hardly look at c. Sure both languages are portable within their standards, but name one program of any size with a decent user interface that follows the standards and does not use other libs.

A replacement for C++

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Gentlemen,

I'm a first year programming student at an Ivy League school and I've just finished my Visual Basic classes. This term I'll be moving onto C++. However I've noticed some issues with C++ that I'd like to discuss with the rest of the programming community. Please do not think of me as being technically ignorant. In addition to VB, I am very skilled at HTML programming, one of the most challenging languages out there!

C++ is based on a concept known as Object Oriented Programming. In this style of programming (also known as OOPS in the coding community) a programmer builds "objects" or "classes" out of his code, and then manipulates these "classes". Since I'm assuming that you, dear reader, are as skilled at programming as I am, I'll skip further explanation of these "classes".

Please allow me to make a brief aside here and discuss the origins C++ for a moment. My research shows that this language is one of the oldest languages in existance, pre-dating even assembly! It was created in the early 70s when AT&T began looking for a new language to write BSD, its Unix Operation System (later on, other companies would "borrow" the BSD source code to build both Solaris and Linux!) Interestingly, the name C++ is a pun by the creator of the language. When the first beta was released, it was remarked that the language would be graded as a C+, because of how hideously complex and unwieldy it was. The extra plus was tacked on during a later release when some of these issues were fixed. The language would still be graded a C, but it was the highest C possible! Truly a clever name for this language.

Back to the topic on hand, I feel that C++ - despite its flaws - has been a very valuable tool to the world of computers. Unfortunately its starting to show its age, and I feel that it should be retired as COBOL, ADA and Smalltalk seem to have been. Recently I've become aquainted with another language that's quite recently been developed. Its one that promises to greatly simplify programming. This new language is called C.

Although syntactically borrowing a great deal from its predecessor C++, C greatly simplifies things (thus its name, which hints at its simpler nature by striping off the klunky double-pluses.) Its biggest strength is that it abandons an OOPS-style of programming. No more awkward "objects" or "classes". Instead C uses what are called structs. Vaguely similiar to a C++ "class", a struct does away with anachonisms like inheiritance, namespaces and the whole private/public/protected/friend access issues of its variables and routines. By freeing the programmer from the requirement to juggle all these issues, the coder can focus on implementing his algorithm and rapidly developing his application.

While C lacks the speed and robustness of C++, I think these are petty issues. Given the speed of modern computers, the relative sluggishness of C shouldn't be an issue. Robustness and stability will occur as C becomes more pervasive amongst the programming community and it becomes more fine-tuned. Eventually C should have stablity rivalling that of C++.

I'm hoping to see C adopted as the de facto standard of programming. Based on what I've learned of this language, the future seems very bright indeed for C! Eventually, many years from now, perhaps we'll even see an operating system coded in this langauage.

Thank you for your time. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Re:A replacement for C++

[Anonymous Coward]

A programmer has many tools in his tool box. http://dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages and http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Programming/Lan guages/index.html and http://tunes.org/Review/Languages.html. A healthy garden has many vegatables and a craftsman has many tools so a programmer has many languages each suited for the coding task at hand. Learn Assembler, C, Java, Python, Pearl. C++ and Objective C are extensions of C. Learn Basic, Fortran, Cobal, ADA because your may encounter this code when porting a legacy app. C was developed at Bell Labs and JAVA was developed at SUN. The guy that wrote JAVA used C but could not get it to do what he wanted so he sat down and started coding. The language was Called Oak but was changed to JAVA. Stay away from Visual Basic, Microsoft C++ and Microsoft J++ they are full of extensions that break software when porting. You may want to look into C# as that is being ported to Linux and FreeBSD and would give you a way to port code between Windows Linux Unix but I would recommend you learn JAVA it has everything .NET has with the Security and Stability that is missing from .NET. Learn XHTML, XML, SGML, PHP and CGI for Web and stay away from Microsoft ASP.

Re:A replacement for C++

[Anonymous Coward]

> My research shows that this language is
> one of the oldest languages in existance,
> pre-dating even assembly!

Hmm. You go to troll.edu ?

Re:A replacement for C++

[Anonymous Coward]

what an idiot

Re:A replacement for C++

[jo42]

Congratulations on your expensive University-based education!! You seem to have mastered cowardice and copy/paste. What is next for you, entry into politics?

Re:A replacement for C++

[SWTP]

Sorry not flaming but hand assembly was first then a basic menomic assembler then FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC { non visual } etc. Actualy C was developed back in the 70 to develop OS's instead of using assemblers then C++ is C with object concepts. C++ builds on C. VB is nice for quicky stuff as was Pascal to teach programming but C was writtent to create OS. I use VB for quick proof of concept stuff but its basicaly a lead sled on speed. VB concept of classes are a bit strange and in my mind is not really a Object languange. I rather use C++. Makes it much easer in spots to do stuff and is fast. Also if you write it as generic as you can you can transport it to other systems. Just watch out for "int" storage type and byte order. The main thing is learn as many languages as you can. The first, as with human languages beyond your normal one, is always the hardest. The main key is to think in it. Basicaly "BASIC" is a fair training language along with Pascal but has a lot of problems that weaken the language.

Re:A replacement for C++

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow that straight buzz from an idiot. Thanks man.

Re:TeraTerm .vs. PuTTY

[Ashurbanipal]

Glad to hear PuTTY is doing well; I've always liked the attitude of the creator (as expressed by his commentary - I don't know the guy). But I don't think Teraterm has lost much ground yet.

Teraterm is completely scriptable and has an embedded language for doing so. Putty doesn't. Teraterm has an extension interface (which is how SSH is supported) rather than being a code monolith (granted, with Teraterm's weird license and Putty's "fully open" source, this is not a big deal). Teraterm scripting is fairly well entrenched in many corporations and universities.

And as for you comments in RE: SSH v1 security I think you need to do a little more research; O'Callahan's SSH extension specifically disables those portions of SSH v1 that are known to be crackable, and in any case to state "SSH v1 is about as secure as telnet" is grossly incorrect - you can pick up telnet passwords with a packet sniffer, while hacking SSH is quite challenging.

Nonetheless I hope PuTTY continues to improve and eventually gets all the capabilities of TeraTerm. It's just not quite there yet.

Same shit, different thread.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut and paste trolling. At least try to be original.

Open Watcom is not Open Source.

[L. J. Beauregard]

The "Open" Watcom License restricts the use of the software as follows:

2.1 You may use, reproduce, display, perform, modify and distribute Original Code, with or without Modifications, solely for Your internal research and development and/or Personal Use...

where "Personal Use" is defined as:

1.8 "Personal Use" means use of Covered Code by an individual solely for his or her personal, private and non-commercial purposes. An individual's use of Covered Code in his or her capacity as an officer, employee, member, independent contractor or agent of a corporation, business or organization (commercial or non-commercial) does not qualify as Personal Use.

This is not an Open Source license. Sybase has misunderstood the meaning of the term. Yes, the submitted this to the OSI. May the OSI swiftly reject it.

Re:Open Watcom is not Open Source.

[greenius]

Take a look at section 2.2 which covers non-personal use of the code: It looks like an open-source license to me. The section you quote above just removes the need to make source code available if you only use it for your own personal use.

2.2 You may use, reproduce, display, perform, modify and Deploy Covered Code, provided that in each instance:

(a) You must satisfy all the conditions of Section 2.1 with respect to the Source Code of the Covered Code;

(b) You must duplicate, to the extent it does not already exist, the notice in Exhibit A in each file of the Source Code of all Your Modifications, and cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files and the date of any change;

(c) You must make Source Code of all Your Deployed Modifications publicly available under the terms of this License, including the license grants set forth in Section 3 below, for as long as you Deploy the Covered Code or twelve (12) months from the date of initial Deployment, whichever is longer. You should preferably distribute the Source Code of Your Deployed Modifications electronically (e.g. download from a web site);

(d) if You Deploy Covered Code in object code, executable form only, You must include a prominent notice, in the code itself as well as in related documentation, stating that Source Code of the Covered Code is available under the terms of this License with information on how and where to obtain such Source Code; and

(e) the object code form of the Covered Code may be distributed under Your own license agreement, provided that such license agreement contains terms no less protective of Sybase and each Contributor than the terms of this License, and stating that any provisions which differ from this License are offered by You alone and not by any other party.

Questions, questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,
I remember Watcom used to be a highly rated Windows compilor, but it's impossible to compete with VC++ because MS own the OS. So, it ultimately took the same root as the Borland compilor and now, the only thng left is VC++ (bad because now there is no competion).
Has anyone used Watcom and how does it compare with VC++? Are there OO GUI libraries included, or is it just a bare bones compilor? Who are these ScitechSoft geezers - apparently they make a GUI libary for Watcom, but their website is currently "under construction"...

Re:Questions, questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Try www.wxwindows.org.
Scitechsoft, are the creators of the UNIVBE!

Zortech C++?

[meshko]

Anyone remembers Zortech C++?
It was my introduction to "open source" -- a great C++ compiler for DOS and windows 3.11 (maybe something else, I don't know). It was commercial of course, but shipped with full library sources. Maybe even compiler sources, I don't remember.
Zortech was later aquired by Symatnec, I think....

Re:Zortech C++?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Symatec C++ is owned by Digitalmars (http://www.digitalmars.com)

Re:Zortech C++?

[bousozoku]

The very stable Zortech compilers became the flaky Symantec C/C++ compilers, both for Macintosh and DOS/Windows.

Symantec bought the Think C and Pascal compilers for the Macintosh earlier. These compilers had approximately 97 percent of the market, and Symantec lost total market share within about 3 years, to Metrowerks.