Object-Orientation FAQ

From: bruno@tk.telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de (Bruno Achauer)
Subject: Trellis compiler available
Date: 23 Oct 1994 00:16:02 GMT
Organization: Telematics Department, Karlsruhe University, Germany

The beta release of version 0.2 of the TNT Trellis system is now
available for anonymous ftp from tk.telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de.

Enclosed is ANNOUNCE file from the distribution:

What are Trellis and TNT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trellis is an object-oriented language developed within Digital
Equipment Corp. The language features compile-time type checking,
multiple inheritance, parametrized types, exception handling and
iterators.

TNT is a new implementation of Trellis, consisting of a compiler, a
library of predefined types and a (rudimentary) run time system:

  - The compiler implements the language as defined by the reference
    manual (except for a few esoteric constructs), plus a few minor
    extensions.

  - Predefined types are standard types such as integers, strings,
    arrays etc. (in Trellis, no type is built into the language!),
    an IO system and a (rudimentary) hierarchy of collection types.

  - The run time system is pretty incomplete right now; in particular,
    neither garbage collection nor threads are implemented yet.

The system is available for several architectures:

  - the Digital Alpha (running OSF/1),
  - the HP Precision Architecture (under HP-UX),
  - the Intel 386 (under Linux),
  - Digital's Mips workstations,
  - Sun's Sparc workstations (running SunOS).

Both source code and prebuilt kits are available.

Further work will concentrate on supporting transparently distributed
objects a la DOWL.

Changes since last version
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The HP-PA, Linux and Sparc ports.

* Building the compiler no longer requires the SFIO library.

* The compiler now can use the GNU assembler to generated object files;
  at least on small MIPS machines, this will speed up compilation
  considerably.

* Several minor bugs have been fixed.

Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~

The prebuilt kits require disk space ranging from 800 KB (Linux) to
2.4 MB (OSF/1); a C compilation system (assembler, linker and the C
library) must be installed. In addition, the Mips and HP-PA versions
will benefit if the GNU assembler is present.

Building the system from scratch requires from 5.2 MB (Linux) to 16 MB
(Alpha). You will also need some auxiliary tools and libraries:

  - Cocktail V9208 (the Karlsruhe Compiler toolbox),
  - GNU make V3.68 or later,
  - patch,
  - makedepend.

Most of these should be available on a nearby ftp site (makedepend is
part of the X distribution; GNU make and patch are distributed by the
FSF).