README

	EARLY BETA RELEASE OF THE BLA COMPILER (1995)

Note well: all of this is intended for language hackers
and other very interested people, not for general consumption.

This archive contains a very early beta of a Bla compiler
implementation. You will want to read the paper on Bla that is
hopefully available from where you got this, if not, point your
browser at http://strlen.com/bla-language to
get it (ps/dvi/tex), or use the ascii version in this archive.

To get it all to run, you will have to compile the sources
in the src/ directory by typing `make'. I have only tested
this software on Sparc machines (SunOs and Solaris) with
GnuC++ and on the Amiga (AmigaOS and NetBSD) with GnuC++ and
MaxonC++ 3.0. Getting this to compile on other systems is
entirely your problem, it shouldn't be a problem for standard
32bit unix systems with GnuC++ however. Executables for the
Amiga are provided in the amiga/ directory.

Assuming you got it all to compile ok, this will result in
the three executables `bla', `bint' and `bdsm'. The functionality
of these three programs is described in the aforementioned paper
(the ascii version is available in the doc/ directory). Some
sample code to compile is in the examples/ directory. Try:

# src/bla examples/prolog

The software in this archive comes with no support of any kind,
i.e. you're on your own. You may use the software any way you
see fit for personal purposes, if however you want to reuse /
redistribute it in part or whole I'd be very pleased if you
contacted me about it first.

If you want to contact me for whatever reason, see the contact link at
http://strlen.com/bla-language.  Do not email me with complaints about
the implementation (bugs/features) since I know, or ask about future
releases since I don't know.

Wouter van Oortmerssen


Update (2014):

I've added portability code for modern C++ compilers under 64bit,
but 64bit does not work yet.
Wouter is cool with a BSD license on this work.

Reini Urban