Re: next "big" language?? (disagree)

[jsa@organon.com (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <ag129.532.0011DA32@ucs.cam.ac.uk> ag129@ucs.cam.ac.uk (A. Grant) writes:

> In article <dewar.834584250@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> >A. Grant said
> >"The point of assertions is not to print messages for the
> >programmer.  You can use them to allow the compiler to
> >optimise safely..."
> 
> >It is certainly true that assertions can be used for compiler optimization,
> >but that's not what people want.
> 
> What people want is for the compiler to do all the work, i.e. prove
> that all array subscripts are valid, that all dereferenced pointers

I basically agree with you here.  Well, more or less.  Well, you know,
they probably would like it to do everything, like:

program A:
    Setting: The Factory
    Task   : Construct complete CIM and TQM system
end A

:-)


> Why don't you like assertions enabling optimisation where
> the compiler can prove the correctness of the assertion, i.e. 
> optimise it away?  Then all you are doing is giving a hint to 
> the compiler about an optimisation strategy, without altering
> the meaning of the program at all.

I don't believe that Robert said the _he_ wouldn't like assertions
allowed to do this, but that certain "other people" didn't.  I find this
incomprehensible also.  And since GNAT (GNU Ada, which Robert had a
significant hand in) has pragma Assert it would appear he agrees - at
least at some level! :-)

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
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