[Coco] Expert C programmer wanted

[James Dessart]

John said:
> Like I said it's a cool and worthy project Roger, truly I hope it
> happens! I'm only suggesting you might want to consider some different
> strategies for making it happen. Open Source model, bounty funding by
> the community, do it yourself, etc.

I tried the open source model. ;) Frankly, unless there's someone with a
lot of time on their hands, and a lot of motivation, it's not going to
happen. Money makes for motivation.

Added to that, you need someone quite experienced with programming to
write the backend of a compiler. Of those of us here who can manage it, I
doubt there are many with the time.

As for writing one from scratch, Roger, I think you'd be better served
taking small-c and writing a back-end for it. That's your best bet for
time spent vs. pragmatically valuable results, when compared to hatching
your own, or even trying to do this with gcc. Small-c doesn't get you
full ANSI C compliance, but it gets you enough that you can compile
smallish programs, and that's enough for most.

Then there's the question of the standard library...

I agree with John that $200 is not likely to entice someone who has the
skills to pull it off, because the time it would take, if billed to this
person's regular place of employment, would likely exceed a value of
$5000. This is based on a manmonth of work (my estimate for the job) and a
wage of $30 an hour. That's actually low, given current rates.

In any case, that's a lot of money. I think if everyone chipped in, and
there was someone seriously interested in doing it, we might be able to
make it worth their while. Roger's $200 could be part of the bounty, I'm
sure I could chip in a couple of bucks, the only question is, is there
someone willing to step in if we do get the right number?

James