New Atari Compiler Dev

[DanOliver]

Just to add a couple to the list...

 

Elon Musk seems to think out of the box. I can only imagine the number of people thought if a rocket could land itself and be reused don't you think NASA, funded with billions of dollars and working for almost 60 years, having the brightest and most educated scholars on the earth, would have already figured out this can't be done? I'm guessing Elon was called an idiot a few times to his face and thought an idiot by thousands of others. And that's just Space X. Look at other things he's done. There's a pattern of thinking out of the box. And Elon is just the guy we hear about. I'm guessing pretty much everyone who works with him understands the power of thinking out of the box.

 

Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Babbage, Booker T Washington, Thomas Edison...there are enough examples to fill volumes. Many out of the box thinkers were killed for daring to go against the status quo. It's a bit sad that examples have to be asked for.

 

Those are just famous examples. Probably a few million others no one remembers. The first modern farmers to decided to not apply so many chemicals to crops certainly went against many PhDs.

 

But the example I was thinking of when I made the post and why I would even make such a post is the context of this forum...Atari. I'm sure many self described brains were only too happy to pointed out to Bushnell how dumb he was to try and produce the 2600 for many very logical sounding (to them) reasons.

 

And more specifically the programming of 2600 games. Any one want to guess how many of these games employ multiple examples of algorithms that go against established dogma? And how often those unique algorithms have been dismissed by "educated" comp sci types?

 

Yes, this type of thinking will always be dismissed as philosophical crosstalk. There will always be a line of people ready to call out of the box thinkers names like idiot and arrogant...but that's a good thing. It's the best indication of being on the right path.

 

One last general example. How many of you make your living at companies or in industries which were founded or based on out of the box ideas? How many products do you use everyday that were invented by out of the box thinkers?

 

I'm certainly not dismissing education (research is different). Education is a very important tool used by out of the box thinkers. Knowing what box you're in can be a big help. But it can also be an inhibitor if used poorly. The out of the box thought comes first. Once proven and useful then the out of the box idea becomes integrated into education.

 

And of course many times starting from scratch leads you to the exact same place others had already figured out. And many times there's failure. Been there several times. So that means new ways should never be tried? Or only tried when you're certain of a successful out come? Well, yeah, for most people. You know, the people piling kindling at the base of the latest person trying to improve the lives of the mob.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

NASA is probably not the best example. Big organisations (I am working for one too) tend to kill all creativity. And there they are usually very efficient.

 

Here the situation is pretty different. This is a hobby, no one is limited in his creativity. The principles of parsers and compilers where also not developed by a big industry. Especially in IT there are a lot of people contributing, who are doing this as a hobby. And they are doing this for many, many years now.

 

So the chances of creating something really new are low. And the chances that this new thing is better than the current-state-of art are minimal. IMO.

[DanOliver]

NASA wasn't used as an example.

 

Chances of creating anything really new is pretty much always nearly impossible. For most people that's reason enough to not try, which is fine. If everyone thought out of the box...well, there'd be no box to think out of.

[Mr SQL]

 

NASA is probably not the best example. Big organisations (I am working for one too) tend to kill all creativity. And there they are usually very efficient.

 

Here the situation is pretty different. This is a hobby, no one is limited in his creativity. The principles of parsers and compilers where also not developed by a big industry. Especially in IT there are a lot of people contributing, who are doing this as a hobby. And they are doing this for many, many years now.

 

So the chances of creating something really new are low. And the chances that this new thing is better than the current-state-of art are minimal. IMO.

 

Without at least endeavoring to create something new or better than the current-state-of art the chances are zero.

 

Gip-Gip is endeavoring, his ideas make that clear so imo it's up to us to suggest positive ideas and methods and share our examples to encourage him; a necessary ingredient is optimism.

 

 

NASA wasn't used as an example.

 

Chances of creating anything really new is pretty much always nearly impossible. For most people that's reason enough to not try, which is fine. If everyone thought out of the box...well, there'd be no box to think out of.

^This.

[Gip-Gip]

Dev update:

 

I just recently switched over to Debian and I'm fixing any memory leaks found by Valgrind. Little progress has been made because this, but now AtaC should be much more stable(when I upload the files).

[Gip-Gip]

News of sorts...

 

I am back from a break of writing code and I will make the project a kit. Not a huge kit; I am only on a standalone assembler at the moment, but this will help with the structure of the compiler greatly. I might also add a linker, but I'm not 100% sure about it. The previous version of AtaC is more than likely scrapped.

 

I would greatly appreciate input from the community.

 

Link to everything is in my signature.