In another article Geshtar wrote:
> I've been writing a program to simplify the creation of VMS programs
> for the VM. FYI it's a Win32 app. The program has reached the point
> where when run will autoproduce a skeleton file that runs on a VM
> (Doesn't do anything special but it runs =P) Now, I must develop the
> OOP language that will allow even a newbie to make VMU games. Here
> are my two choices:
> 1. Adapt the Dream Animator control file format to include a whole
> bunch of easy-to-use commands, increasing it's functionability from
> just displaying images and running a P3 scan. Newbies would be able
> to pick up the language faster, and it's probably easier to adapt
> that format than to...
> 2. Adapt, as best as possible, the C programming language. A really,
> really, really simplified version of the C programming language.
> Experienced programmers would most likely find it easier to develop
> VM games with it than the choice former. It would probably be harder
> for me to impliment it, though.


Personally, I think the best way to start working on higher level language
utilities (C or otherwise) is to build upon what has already been accomplished.
Marcus Comstedt's aslc86k assembler has become a well tested tool, however, it
doesn't support an intermediate object file format. If it could be extended to
allow output to a simple relocatable object file format, such as NROFF, then it
would be much eaisier to work on compilers that produce assembly directives for
it. After all, this is how most compilers are built anyway.

Futher more, It's much eaiser to write peephole optimization algorithms when you
can write code that outputs assembly instructions rather than binary opcodes.

I've read through the aslc86k source, but it's complete lack of commentation and
terse varible names has made it prove too dificult for me. If the Marcus or
somebody could simply add this ability, I think some real progress could start
being made in this respect. However, I'm really busy with school right now so I
don't have the time to work on this myself.

BTW, I suggest NROFF because it's a simple doctmented format that was created
for use with NASM. NASM comes with a a number utilities and code for
maniuplating NROFF object files as well a preliminary NROFF incremental linker.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts.