Re: portmanteau (was Re: Eiffel and Java + Ada dispatching)

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <E0vMwK.BzE@world.std.com> bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) writes:

  > What, exactly, is 'portmanteau code'?

   Sheeesh, go and any of several standard texts on the subject of
software engineering, by one of the pioneers in the study of Boolean
logic, Charles Dodgson, writing under some pseudonym.  I think the
discussion actually occurs in the introduction to "The Hunting of the
Snark."  In any case he is discussing "Jabberwocky," and uses the term
portmanteau words to decribe words with more than one meaning packed
into them.  (See also in "Through the Looking Glass" the conversation
between Alice and Humpty Dumpty.)

   So portmanteau code is a section of program code which not only can
be read in more than one way, but all meanings are there and
accessable.  Unix has lots of portmanteau commands, where either the
arguements determine the meaning, such as setenv, or the name by which
the executable is invoked determines the operation to be performed
such as compress.

    (A portmanteau is a type of suitcase which folds up and can be
opened in different ways when folded and unfolded.  Many portmanteaus
are sold today as luggage designed to be carried on aircraft.)

    Totally off the subject, but one upon a time I wrote some
portmanteau machine code.  Two completely different programs for an
IBM 3033. (It wouldn't work on those 360/370 architecture machines
which required instrutions to be aligned. ;-) You executed the second
program by starting one byte after the starting point of the first
program.  (Of course I cheated, there were only about 70 byte
interleaved instructions in the code.)



--

					Robert I. Eachus

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