Tuesday, July 29, 2008

LIL, The Little Implementation Language

LIL, The Little Implementation Language: "LIL, The Little Implementation Language, has been a lost and overlooked chapter in the history of Unix and the C language.

Back in the days when systems programmers still disdained 'high level languages' there were stories in the compiler community, passed mouth to ear about LIL, a high level assembler, whose creator, had a friendly competition with the creators of C, as to which language could generate more efficient code. Each time LIL edged out C, the C compiler would be improved, and erase LIL's margin of advantage.

A unique element to the LIL saga, is that LIL's creator documented the story, available here (thanks to a copy provided by the author);"