CompuServe Messages

>I think I will have to disagree with you on terminology. I have never >heard of the term translating compiler. I have always heard the >term preprocessor used. I sympathize with this, but please do not disagree. C++ has had many hurdles to address and the truth of the matter is that many of them have not been technical in nature. The term preprocessor was applied to C++ for political/marketing reasons early on by opponents/ competitors and has unfortunately stuck since "it appears that generating C from C++ is trivial" and all that kinda jazz. Just ain't so. In fact, because C++ support strong type checking, it just can't be a preprocessor. That just isn't what the computer term preprocessor means. If it is, I contest that my UNIX C compiler which generates asm code is a preprocessor as well and I can guarantee your the that Comeau C++ is doing lots, lots, lots more in terms of compilation phases that a C compiler ever would. So, again, I sympathize with some of the… slang if you will…. that's been floating around, but it is not what it is.