Back to R3/IPPOLIT(/R4?)

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zwegner
Posts: 57
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:38 am

Re: Back to R3/IPPOLIT(/R4?)

Post by zwegner » Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:51 pm

hyatt wrote:I think that is about as likely as a snowball's chances of survival in hell...

I've both written too much code, graded too much code, and looked at too much code written by others. It just isn't written like that. And who would write a "B" to C compiler? that's likely more work than writing a real compiler, based on the syntax they produced... I just do not believe that is what happened. I think it is a RE of something. Whether it was significantly modified after that or not is unknown, since the original has not bee exposed by anyone (other than Vas' statement).
I said that b was the obfuscated version of the source, not the original (most probably). You know, when somebody makes a claim so specific, there's usually a reason :)

And I really hope you're joking about "likely more work than writing a real compiler"...

hyatt
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Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 2:13 am
Real Name: Bob Hyatt (Robert M. Hyatt)
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Re: Back to R3/IPPOLIT(/R4?)

Post by hyatt » Thu Jul 21, 2011 10:23 pm

zwegner wrote:
hyatt wrote:I think that is about as likely as a snowball's chances of survival in hell...

I've both written too much code, graded too much code, and looked at too much code written by others. It just isn't written like that. And who would write a "B" to C compiler? that's likely more work than writing a real compiler, based on the syntax they produced... I just do not believe that is what happened. I think it is a RE of something. Whether it was significantly modified after that or not is unknown, since the original has not bee exposed by anyone (other than Vas' statement).
I said that b was the obfuscated version of the source, not the original (most probably). You know, when somebody makes a claim so specific, there's usually a reason :)

And I really hope you're joking about "likely more work than writing a real compiler"...
Last first. No I was not joking if the ippolit source is the _output_ of a compiler that takes some clean input source. I've written at least 2 full-blown compilers, and none were as difficult as what I imagine one would need to do to emit that kind of code.

As far as "b" goes, I consider it a complete crock. If you think there was another source that was compiled, then de-compiled to produce ippolit, that is far more believable than any of the B crap on their web page.

Personally, I have, and still do consider ippolit to be a decompiled program. I don't see any other rational explanation for the way it is written. One could use a pre-processor, run something thru that to expand macros madly, and perhaps produce something that ugly, but they would have to write a ton of macros, IMO.

And then the question, "why spend so much time and effort for zero gain?"

As far as the "claim" goes, I have no idea how you might think you have inside info there. Unless you _know_ the authors, which seems unlikely...

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