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,MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,75a8a3664688f227 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-11 09:07:24 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!news.gv.tsc.tdk.com!news.iac.net!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail From: Robert Dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Parameter Modes, In In Out and Out Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:48:14 GMT Organization: Deja.com Message-ID: <93ko49$auq$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <7Cx56.90736$A06.3322588@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com> <937jab$s23$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3A57CD7F.2228BFD5@brighton.ac.uk> <938p3u$omv$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93cagm$c1j$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93e4e6$ucg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93encq$brm$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93f6ar$m44$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93flab$2mh$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93fqau$6m2$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93h9mo$bbm$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93il87$iqo$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93k6dv$qt6$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.232.38.14 X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Jan 11 16:48:14 2001 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; U) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x51.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3913 Date: 2001-01-11T16:48:14+00:00 List-Id: In article <93k6dv$qt6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93il87$iqo$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar wrote: > > In article <93h9mo$bbm$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > > It is not very long time ago when a program of > > > 1Mb size was something unimaginable. > > > > Well, quite a long time ago, certainly you have to go back > > over 30 years, which in the world of computers is a VERY > > long time. > > I would say 15 years. That time PDP-11 with 256K was a quite > common model. The process address space was 64K. A "very > large" program was FORTRAN-IV compiler (30-40K). That was a "mini-computer", so called because it was tiny compared to main-frames. You cannot judge typical large application program size by looking at mini-computers of the time. The 64K memory seemed absurdly small by mainframe standards (it was already common to see multiple megabytes of physical memory on mainframes at that time). So looking at program size on PDP-11's as a guide for typical program size is like looking at the Palm Pilot today to get an idea of typical program size today (on the Palm Pilot, applications larger than 100K are unusual, and indeed my brother's datebk4 program, at about 450K is the largest application program in common use on that platform :-) > > > Now it is hard to produce one > > > of less size (in conventional environment). > > > > That's a very peculiar statement, very few of the programs > > I write are anywhere near a megabyte long. > > A couple of windows here, pair ActiveX controls there, plus > misuse of STL and here you are. Misuse will get you anywhere :-) > The point was that among all arguments pro and cotra > including some feature into a universal and long living > system, a reference to balance between complexity and > functionality is the weakest one. Please note the words > "universal" and "long living". Sounds like you have not had much experience in the real world of language design, where this balance is THE primary issue in design considerations. > IMO the first role should play such factors regularity, > correctness and volume. Sorry, that sentence is too garbled, I have no idea what "volume" refers to in the context of language design. Regularity (often referred to as orthogonality) is indeed a critical feature, and actually this is where it is very difficult to get a clear definition of MD (or MI for that matter :-) Correctness is an odd concept in the language design environnment, unless you mean that something is correct if dmitry declares it correct (an approach you seem to have taken in the past). If you mean consistency in a formal sense, yes, then of course this is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition. Language design is much harder than people think. Well meaning technical folks with a little bit of experience in language semantics, but no experience in full language design, often vastly underestimate the difficulties involved. Dmitry, if you want to follow and understand some of the language design issues involved in Ada 95, I would go read the archives, and in particular, read the sequence of mapping documents. > Anyway, let's see what will happen with MD in the static > typed languages in the next 5-10 years. My guess: nothing much. I just don't see any constituency that would push in favor of moving in this direction for statically typed languages. The arguments are quite weak (note that Dmitry has not been able to present any specific arguments, beyond the claim that binary operators require MD, but with no good examples). In practice in Ada, you can always achieve the effects of MD in specific instances, and the generalization is just not worth the effort, given how rarely it would be of use. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/