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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,a00006d3c4735d70 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-02-01 13:55:54 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!199.45.49.37!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!nwrdny03.gnilink.net.POSTED!0e8a908a!not-for-mail From: Hyman Rosen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031205 Thunderbird/0.4 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: In-Out Parameters for functions References: <1075482385.142744@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <1%_Sb.6686$bn1.6285@nwrdny02.gnilink.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 21:55:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 162.84.157.220 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: nwrdny03.gnilink.net 1075672554 162.84.157.220 (Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:55:54 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:55:54 EST Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5171 Date: 2004-02-01T21:55:54+00:00 List-Id: David Starner wrote: > You won't gain knowledge by brute force, but it does permit certain > reasoning, formal and informal, about code that you can't do if the > language forces evaluation order. Sure. The compiler can say "I can pick an arbitrary order, so obviously the programmer doesn't care what the order is." It's just like in C++, where the compiler says, "He's using this as the index, so he must know wht he's doing." If the programmer did thsi by intention, then an opportunity for optimization is exposed. If the programmer is in error, then an opportunity for a bug is exposed. The question is whether the potential gain in optimization outweighs the potential for error. I don't believe the potential for optimization afforded by leaving order of execution unspecified is significant at all.