Thanks, GNU Project!

The GNU Project does it, again!

While, yes, it is true that Richard Stallman right now stands as a character with strange mannerisms and behaviors, to the point of some MIT alumni considering him to be negative to the whole academic environment, the contributions he has pushed to the whole FOSS, GNU Project, and, remarkably, software development, are of quite a high importance. Of course, this should not be understood as a way to clean Stallman of his problematic attitudes; this is just saying that he, and most importantly, the GNU Project, are keystone characters to our field.

Regarding this particular podcast, wow. First things first, Dr. Morgan Deters is quite knowledgeable and articulate. So much, in fact, that this episode’s host just let him talk; our guest really knows how to explain his business. This isn’t surprising; our guest specialized on Formal Methods and Verification. That is, he has to be articulate and have a pure mode of thought to even consider dealing problems in pure formality. Having said that, it is quite saddening to discover his eventual passing away in 2015. I just hope I get at least a fraction of the articulation and intelligence he achieved.

So, GCC. Of course, an important tool that will still stay with us, at least for the foreseeable future. I seriously cannot see it fading away any time soon. I believe its main advantage is its high flexibility, which makes it feasible to upgrade to add more target architectures, all this in a relatively lightweight package. All in all, I find the topic of compilators quite interesting since, as I have stated in this blog’s Introduction entry, I do wish to, someday, implement a programming language of my own design. So, indeed, I should better get to know this relevant tool, which not only is it powerful, but highly accessible too.

 

Arno. (Host). (2007, July 6). Internals of GCC (No. 61). [Audio podcast episode]. In Software Engineering Radio, IEEE Software. http://www.se-radio.net/2007/07/episode-61-internals-of-gcc/

 

CVC4. (n.d.) In Memoriam: Morgan Deters. Retrieved from https://cvc4.github.io/in-memoriam-morgan-deters.html

Selam, G. (2019, September 12). Remove Richard Stallman. Medium. Retrieved from https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794