On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:50 AM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> Even C has a runtime.  Perhaps you should look more into how programming
> languages are implemented :-).  C++ has one too, especially in the wake of
> exceptions and such.

really?  what do you consider to be the c runtime?
i don't think that the asm goo that gets you to main
really counts as "runtime" and neither does the c
library, because neither implement language features.


How about setting up stack space in the code for an operating system kernel?  That's something you don't explicitly write in C that must be there somehow, for example in an operating system kernel.  You end up changing that runtime bit and then all your C code has different stack space available.  I suppose you could group that into the kernel's runtime, but since the operating system I'm thinking of is coded in C, that kind of line drawing seems silly ;-)

I agree that C has a really really minimal need for any "help" to run on raw metal, but some level of support is still necessary.

Dave
 
- erik