Re: Announce: OpenToken 2.0 released

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>]

Hyman Rosen <hymie@prolifics.com> writes:

> Apropos of this, I recall more than one thread here on c.l.a where
> Robert Dewar says that one can legitimately make "ordinary platform"
> assumptions when programming in Ada. That is, one does not read the
> A.R.M. or treat the compiler as if they are the enemy and thwarting
> you at every turn.

True, but it's not always completely clear what assumptions are
reasonable.  For example, you might reasonably decide that your program
will be portable only to 8-bit-byte-addressable machines, whereas
standard libraries perhaps ought to be more portable than that.

If the *hardware* insists that the smallest integer type is 32 bits,
then is it unreasonable for the C implementation to read 32-bit
quantities?  Surely, if char and int are the same size (say, 32 bits), I
should be allowed to write out the number -1, or 2**31-1, or 1_000_000!
And surely if I can write it out, I should be able to read it back in.

>... Conceivably a compiler for any language can be
> implemented to stick to the letter of its Standard but still be as
> useless as possible, but then you have the choice of not using it.

- Bob