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I am working on an assignment for the university I attend

and need to know the programming language Windows XP was

written with. I have looked everywhere. I hoping someone

in here can point me in the right direction to find the

information or just let me know. I think it is in C++ or

Visual C++ but just want verification, please.



Thank you!


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TJ wrote:

The answer is certainly C. But... The Windows XP programs are Microsoft

proprietary and are not public, so I don't know if you will be able to

find an authoritative direct source on this. What is public is the

interface between the operating system and application programs.

Virtually all of that interface (the Windows "API") is defined in the C

language using common C file formats and notation. Virtually all of the

example programs provided for the guidance of API-level application

programmers are in C, with some new features beginning to appear with a

C++ interface. Historically, the C language was developed with the

express purpose of being powerful enough to write an operating system,

and it is almost universally used for such systems programming needs.



--

Scott McPhillips [VC++ MVP]

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One of the tips of the day in VC++ claims "We use it

before you do - Visual C++ was written using Visual C++."



How??!!



(It may have said 'part of' or the like but that is the

gist.)

Ben:



I haven't actually seen that tip myself, but many compilers are frequently

written in the language they are intended to compile, so this isn't

uncommon. Your confusion probably stems from a characterization of this fact

as a sort of chicken-and-egg paradox -- i.e., how is it possible to write

the compiler for a language for which a compiler doesn't already exist? The

answer is that all the information to make any program in the language is

already "wrapped up" inside the language itself.



Computer language designers need to use language in order to express the

processes by which their languages work -- sometimes even the same one, like

in the case of Visual C++ written in Visual C++. Languages that can

accomplish this feat are "Turing-complete"; they can describe themselves.

Most intermediate discrete mathematics textbooks cover Turing-completeness,

which is admittedly a potentially confusing topic and far too broad for a

single newsgroup post. =)



Hope that helps.

- JJ





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"Ben Taylor" <ben_taylor_g1@yahoo.co.uk>skrev i meddelandet

You have to start with the previous version, of course! :-)



When it is complete enough, it can be used to recompile itself. If you

don't have a previous version, you can use a compiler on another

computer.



It *is* a chicken and egg situation, but there has been a lot of

chickens during the last 50 years. The very first C++ compiler was

written in C. I guess the first C compiler was written in the language

B...





I once wrote a BIOS for one of the first PCs, where we used a cross

assembler on a PDP-11 mini computer to produce the code. We then

flashed an EPROM and moved that to the new hardware. That's how you

start a new computer - use an old one as the starter engine!





Eventually you get back to some poor guy who wrote the first assembler

in machine code in the 1950s. From then on you could keep building on

the available foundation.





Bo Persson

bop2@telia.com



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"Ben Taylor" <ben_taylor_g1@yahoo.co.uk>wrote:

You start with a compiler you already have.

If you write a compiler from scratch, you

first write one that compiles the core of

the language. (Using any language/compiler

that's available to you.) You then use that

compiler to incrementally add new features

to its own source untill you implemented

the whole of the language. (Or, as is the

case with VC, the part you consider important

enough.)



Schobi



--

SpamTrap@gmx.de is never read

I'm Schobi at suespammers org



"My hair style calls into immediate question all my judgements."

Scott Meyers

(http://www.google.de/groups?selm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.de/groups=MPG.15eba7c9a401e7398969c%40news.hevanet.com)





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Interesting... thanks all