FYI: History documentation improvements [m4--devo--1.0--patch-16]

[Gary V. Vaughan]

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Applied to HEAD.

  * looking for address@hidden/m4--devo--1.0--patch-15 to compare with
  * comparing to address@hidden/m4--devo--1.0--patch-15
  M  ChangeLog
  M  doc/m4.texinfo
  
  * modified files
  
  Index: Changelog
  from  Gary V. Vaughan  <address@hidden>
  
        * doc/m4.texinfo (History): Add better notes on the ancestory of
        GNU m4, and other historical interest.
  
  --- orig/doc/m4.texinfo
  +++ mod/doc/m4.texinfo
  @@ -291,25 +291,53 @@
   debugging their @code{m4} scripts than doing real work.  Beware that
   @code{m4} may be dangerous for the health of compulsive programmers.
   
  +
   @node History
   @section Historical references
   
  -The historical notes included here are fairly incomplete, and not
  -authoritative at all.  Please knowledgeable users help us to more
  -properly write this section.
  -
   @code{GPM} has been an important ancestor of @code{m4}.  See
   C. Stratchey: ``A General Purpose Macro generator'', Computer Journal
   8,3 (1965), pp. 225 ff.  @code{GPM} is also succinctly described into
   David Gries classic ``Compiler Construction for Digital Computers''.
   
  +The classic B. Kernighan and P.J. Plauger: ``Software Tools'',
  +Addison-Wesley, Inc. (1976) describes and implements a Unix
  +macro-processor language, which inspired Dennis Ritchie to write
  address@hidden, a macro processor for the AP-3 minicomputer.
  +
  +Kernighan and Ritchie then joined forces to develop the original
  address@hidden, as described in ``The M4 Macro Processor'', Bell
  +Laboratories (1977) which had only 21 builtin macros.
  +
   While @code{GPM} was more @emph{pure}, @code{m4} is meant to deal with
  -the true intricacies of real life: macros can be recognized without being
  -pre-announced, skipping whitespace or end-of-lines is easier, more constructs
  -are builtin instead of derived, etc.
  +the true intricacies of real life: macros can be recognized without
  +being pre-announced, skipping whitespace or end-of-lines is easier,
  +more constructs are builtin instead of derived, etc.
  +
  +Originally, the Kernighan and Plauger macro-processor, and then
  address@hidden formed the engine for the Rational FORTRAN preprocessor,
  +that is, the @code{Ratfor} equivalent of @code{cpp}.  Later, @code{m4}
  +was used as a frontend for @code{Ratfor}, @code{C} and @code{Cobol}.
  +
  +Rene' Seindal released his implementation of @code{m4}, GNU @code{m4},
  +in 1990, with the aim of removing the artificial limitations in many
  +of the traditional @code{m4}'s: like maximum line length, macro size,
  +number of macros and so on.
  +
  +The late Professor A. Dain Samples described and implemented a further
  +evolution in the form of @code{M5}: ``User's Guide to the M5 Macro
  +Language: 2nd edition'', Electronic Announcement on comp.compilers
  +newsgroup (1992).
  +
  +Francois Pinard took over maintainance of GNU @code{m4} in 1992, until
  +1994 when he released GNU @code{m4} 1.4, which was the stable release
  +for 10 years.  In 2004, Paul Eggert released 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 which
  +addressed some long standing bugs in the venerable 1.4 release.
  +
  +Most recently, in 2005 Gary V. Vaughan collected together the many
  +patches to GNU @code{m4} 1.4 that were floating around the net and
  +released 1.4.3.
   
  -Originally, @code{m4} was the engine for Rational FORTRAN preprocessor,
  -that is, the @code{ratfor} equivalent of @code{cpp}.
   
   @node Invoking m4
   @section Invoking @code{m4}
  
  
  
- -- 
Gary V. Vaughan      ())_.  address@hidden,gnu.org}
Research Scientist   ( '/   http://tkd.kicks-ass.net
GNU Hacker           / )=   http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool
Technical Author   `(_~)_   http://sources.redhat.com/autobook
_________________________________________________________
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