From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Compile time executed functions
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 00:06:05 GMT
Date: 2001-03-30T00:06:05+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <wcck85886j6.fsf@world.std.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 3AC2E665.F45C18A@home.com
Mark Biggar <mark.a.biggar@home.com> writes:
> It's been done many times. For example go read "Godel, Esher and
> Bach" by Hofsteder, the section on the *LOOP languages. Obviously you
> must outlaw abritrary "goto" statements, recursive procedures and
> while loops, but if (case) statements and Ada like "for" loops are fine.
> The trick it that you can only have looping construsts that allow
> the computation of a strict bound on the number of iterations,
> before the loop is entered.
But if you give me a language like that, and what I really want is a
while loop, I'll end up writing something like:
for I in 1..10**100 loop -- or maybe just 2**31-1 ;-)
exit when ...;
...
end loop;
It's easy to prove that the above loop is not infinite, but if I make a
mistake in the exit condition, I'll end up with a very long loop, which
is just as bad in practise.
So I think it's better just to allow while loops, and live with the fact
that they might be infinite. Unless you have a fancy proof engine that
can prove termination of while loops most of the time.
- Bob
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2001-03-30 0:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 86+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2001-03-27 7:10 Compile time executed functions Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-27 13:30 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-28 7:08 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-28 19:07 ` Phaedrus
2001-03-29 7:41 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-29 5:02 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-29 7:58 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-29 14:28 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-29 14:48 ` Ted Dennison
2001-04-04 7:52 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-04-04 14:05 ` Ted Dennison
2001-04-05 6:30 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-29 19:48 ` Simon Wright
2001-03-31 19:30 ` Ken Garlington
2001-04-04 7:53 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-30 10:41 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-03-30 16:13 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-30 16:47 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-03-30 18:54 ` Stephen Leake
2001-04-01 8:42 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-03-31 19:30 ` Ken Garlington
2001-04-01 8:59 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-04-01 18:22 ` Ken Garlington
2001-04-02 9:30 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-04-02 12:42 ` Robert A Duff
2001-04-02 14:16 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-04-03 0:33 ` Pat Rogers
2001-04-02 13:09 ` Ken Garlington
2001-04-02 13:40 ` Robert A Duff
2001-04-02 23:29 ` Ken Garlington
2001-04-13 23:11 ` Robert A Duff
2001-04-02 14:32 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet
2001-04-04 7:59 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-04-04 7:47 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-04-06 0:33 ` Ken Garlington
2001-04-09 12:21 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-04-13 15:51 ` Tucker Taft
2001-03-27 14:39 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-27 16:40 ` Mark Biggar
2001-03-27 18:14 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-27 18:15 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-27 18:57 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-27 19:22 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-27 20:23 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-27 22:15 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-27 23:30 ` Georg Bauhaus
2001-03-28 9:54 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-28 15:20 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-28 16:12 ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
2001-03-28 21:15 ` Robert A Duff
2001-03-28 21:56 ` Brian Rogoff
2001-03-29 8:18 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-29 8:11 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-29 14:37 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-29 16:35 ` Mark Biggar
2001-03-29 19:27 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-29 19:28 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-30 3:41 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-30 4:32 ` Brian Rogoff
2001-03-30 14:27 ` Compile time executed functions [OT] Karel Thönissen
2001-03-30 17:30 ` Scheveningen (Re: Compile time executed functions [OT]) Ray Blaak
2001-03-30 17:39 ` More {OT] (Was " Brian Rogoff
2001-03-30 23:39 ` Karel Thönissen
2001-03-30 17:47 ` Compile time executed functions Brian Hanson
2001-03-30 0:06 ` Robert A Duff [this message]
2001-03-30 15:02 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-30 20:57 ` Robert A Duff
2001-04-02 14:26 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-30 17:33 ` Ray Blaak
2001-03-29 8:25 ` Florian Weimer
2001-03-28 7:17 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-29 1:35 ` Jon S Anthony
2001-03-27 14:39 ` Robert A Duff
2001-03-27 15:09 ` Ted Dennison
2001-03-27 16:33 ` Robert A Duff
2001-03-27 23:36 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-28 20:47 ` Mark Lundquist
2001-03-28 7:29 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-28 22:15 ` Robert A Duff
2001-03-29 8:43 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-31 4:12 ` Robert A Duff
2001-04-05 7:06 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-04-13 23:18 ` Robert A Duff
2001-03-29 5:02 ` Ken Garlington
2001-03-28 7:31 ` Mats Karlssohn
2001-03-30 8:57 ` Georg Bauhaus
replies disabled
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox