From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 108717,ef0074ec236ba6e3 X-Google-Attributes: gid108717,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b19fa62fdce575f9 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-12-05 08:18:39 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!swiss.ans.net!newsgate.watson.ibm.com!watnews.watson.ibm.com!ncohen From: ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.programming Subject: Re: Why don't large companies use Ada? Date: 5 Dec 1994 15:59:08 GMT Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Distribution: world Message-ID: <3bvdcc$1lla@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> References: <1994Nov29.154220.27952@cognos.com> <1994Dec2.225748.1065@isis.muc.de> Reply-To: ncohen@watson.ibm.com NNTP-Posting-Host: rios8.watson.ibm.com Xref: bga.com comp.lang.ada:8283 comp.programming:5621 Date: 1994-12-05T15:59:08+00:00 List-Id: In article <1994Dec2.225748.1065@isis.muc.de>, Mike.Chapman@muc.de (Mike Chapman) writes: |> The last time I wrote any APL code (ca 15 years ago), as an |> optimization step I had to throw away all the comments to allow |> enough space for the program's data in memory!! It makes me appreciate the ZAP student assembler (that's an assembler FOR students, not an assembler OF students!) that we used at Cornell 20 years ago. (20 years??!!!! Where has the time gone?) The assembler had a first pass in which it read card images containing assembly-language source into a buffer, enlarging the buffer as necessary as more cards were read in. The second pass translated assembly language into machine code and placed the machine code in the same buffer, since a typical 80-byte line in the buffer generated from two to six bytes worth of machine code. But if you had a large DS (Define Storage) directive near the beginning of your program, that one line could easily take up more space in the machine-language image than had yet been made available in the buffer from fully processed card images. The solution was to add more card images, typically comment cards, before the DS directive, to ensure that there would be enough space in the buffer by the time the directive was reached. So, in contrast to Mike Chapman's APL translator, the ZAP assembler made you ADD more comments when you ran out of memory! -- Norman H. Cohen ncohen@watson.ibm.com