Re: Forward into the past!

Although another reader has already expressed something approximating
my personal opinion (below), I would like to do so more pointedly.


In article 92-01-004 drw@kutta.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>In article 91-12-089 wws@renaissance.cray.com (Walter Spector)writes:
>>Some compilers support arrays which are dynamically sized when a context
>>is entered. This is similar to a very useful Fortran-90 feature. It is
>>supported by the GNU C compiler.
>It's hard to resist noting that this feature was in Algol 60. That it
>has taken C and Fortran 30 years to adopt it says something about the
>computer community.


I almost agree that it says something about the Fortran community -- but
not quite, because language designers went on to try to design languages
that were better all around, rather than try to retrofit Fortran (for a
while, anyway -- of course, retrofitting did begin later).


But it says something quite opposite about the C community. I am offended
by the number of complex operations that have been added to the C language
already. Assembly languages are supposed to map fairly closely onto the
underlying hardware. Assembly languages such as C were intended to
provide simple operations that give the programmer a great deal of
control, and to be useful as tools for implementing application languages
like Fortran and Algol and Prolog.


Now it is almost necessary to go back and invent a replacement for
assembly language all over again -- one which will be used for
implementing complex features, not for using them. Sigh.


-- Norman Diamond diamond@jit081.enet.dec.com
--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.