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From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Pascal Calling Convention
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:22:46 -0400
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Date: 2011-03-29T14:22:46-04:00
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Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

>...This is actually a question I asked when
> I used this for interviews - when is this structure better than the
> straightforward bit-per-member version?

That's a pretty good interview question.  Much better than the
silly puzzles some folks use.  Or the infamous "tell me your
strengths and weaknesses".

I saw this data structure in a compiler textbook, and it referenced the
Briggs paper, which I have not read.  It is indeed an interesting
algorithm.  Of course, as I'm sure you know, it's completely wrong
in most higher-level languages, including Ada (in which the compiler
is allowed to raise an exception), and C++ (in which the compiler
is allowed to do anything at all).

- Bob