Re: [Cobolforgcc-devel] COBOL compiler

[Tim J. <te...@me...>]

The relationship between the projects is "friendly co-opetition"
I suspect we will end up sharing a large portion of the runtime
routines. The core compilers are completely seperate code bases
and will stay that way in my opinion.

If cobolforgcc is successful it should be a better compiler than
tiny cobol IMHO because it has access to the optimisation and
cross platform capabilities of the GCC back end. So if I had to
guess, I would say that the tiny cobol runtime and the
cobolforgcc core will survive long term. But it is hard to
predict. I get burned out every few months and take a break.

"Easy" is not the word to use for writing a cobol compiler.
Already CB4G is over 70,000 lines of code and we are not half way
yet. TC is about 25,000 lines of code but has a lot more
functionality.

If you are considering contributing, here are some differences:

Contributing to the TC core compiler is much less technically
difficult. GCC is very large and complex and for example it took
me two months of reading doco and code to get started with
integrating to the GCC back end which cobol4gcc uses. Also
contribuing to the core CB4G compiler requires you to have a
copyright assignment to the Free Software Foundation and if
needed a disclaimer from your employer or school.

CB4G requires a test case for every feature, but TC does not seem
to require this. A lot of people find writing tests boring, but
it is required by the extreme programming method used by CB4G and
to me it is essential. "If it hasn't been tested it doesn't
work". TC's model is more that use by users will test it better,
which is possibly true.

TC are freely making extensions whereas CB4G am just focussed on
getting a standards compliant compiler out the door.

TC is being written in C, but CB4G will have much of the runtime
written in COBOL, using the core compiler subset.

For either compiler, writing runtime code is not that hard, and
within the capabilities of most C programmers. 

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that Rildo is
more charismatic than I am, and has done a better job of
encouraging many people to contribute.

One approach is to ask for a task from one project and then do
it. In free software projects generally there are more talkers
than coders but there are enough coders to get a lot done. Even a
small contribution is more help than you think!

Tim Josling

Keisuke Nishida wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm interested in working on an open-source COBOL compiler.
> I've found two projects, TinyCOBOL and COBOL for GCC, and am
> wondering which project I should contribute.
> 
> It seems that TinyCOBOL is more active than COBOL for GCC,
> but I think the latter's approach (i.e., writing a GCC
> frontend) is preferable to the other (i.e., writing a full
> compiler).
> 
> So, my questions are:
> 
>   Is there any relationship between these projects?
>   Are these projects going to be integrated in any future?
>   How easy is it to get COBOL for GCC ready for practical use?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> --
> Keisuke Nishida
>