I use ASEM and ASM51 for years, it is a free 8051 ASM compiler, no bugs
reported yet AFIK, even with macros and else. I don't need to look hard
trying to find a bug, probably more than 500 different programs I made
already can talk by themselves, some of this source files counting more
than 20 thousand text lines (they don't fit in the regular 640k DOS
memory, needing to split them in several include files).

Now you know two free compilers, bug free.  The same for Microsoft 8086
ASM.EXE compiler, using for many years (probably more than 14), never
hit a hole in the cheese.  Looks like "C" is different, leads to bugs.
This is whay I said, I use mostly assembler because I can actual "see"
what the machine will do, I don't expect someone's bugs be introduced at
"my" code.

Once at IBM I made a cross compiler for Z80 microprocessor, in REXX
language (VM under MVS), took me 2 to 3 months to finish and debug it,
macros and all, so source files done in VM/CMS could be compiled to Z80
binary executable code. It was neat, clean and bullet fast, of course,
running in a IBM 3090 mainframe processor... this is the neat thing
about Assembler compilers, you just have to take care of Variables,
Labels, Constants, Direct values and Instructions, nothing else, simple
and easy. By the other side, "C" compilers requires lots of "programming
inteligence", the C compiler needs to solve your source-code-line
"equations", and sometimes some is bypassed or wrongly concepted.

Someday we will have WP compilers (Whole Program). You just state less
than a dozen lines of input/output requirements and click few option
buttons, the compiler will create your whole program at once.  Something
similar is available (hardware) FPGAs, PLDs, GAL's and so on, you just
need to input the bolean formula and the programmer software does all
the rest for you.  I can imagine chasing bugs at WP compilers...

Wagner

"Dipperstein, Michael" wrote:
>
> I have yet to see a bug free compiler.  Compilers are complicated things.  New
> optimizations get added, and sometimes incorrectly used.  In the case of the PIC
> world, new MCU variations are added that cause a change in the compiler.
>
> If you haven't found a bug, you haven't looked hard enough.  Look at Microsoft's
> bug list for the latest revision of Microsoft C.  That's been around since the
> 1980's.
>
> -Mike
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Wagner Lipnharski [mailto:wagner@ustr.net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 7:42 AM
> > To: PICLIST@mitvma.mit.edu
> > Subject: Re: Question: C vs Asm
> >
> >
> > I wonder, and would like somebody to explain, how you can
> > still get bugs
> > from a C compiler that is years old...  we are not talking
> > about a huge
> > software platform.  Is this some kind of beta test software?   I never
> > get any compiling error from the assembler compilers I use for years,
> > not a single one, so I think it is a steady and fully
> > debugged software.