Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!claris!drc From: drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2 Subject: Re: type conversion question Message-ID: <10279@claris.com> Date: 15 Jun 89 13:36:17 GMT References: <14226@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <7465@xenna.Encore.COM> <6187@pdn.paradyne.com> Reply-To: drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) Organization: Claris Corporation, Santa Clara CA Lines: 28 In article <6187@pdn.paradyne.com> alan@oz.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) writes: ... > >The other favorite misinterpretation of the definition of the language is >the nutty idea that providing set types which can contain more elements >than the number of bits in a WORD is "nonstandard." It is NOT!!!! PIM2 >says only that implementations are not REQUIRED to support set types which >can contain more elements than the number of bits in a WORD. But they are NOT >FORBIDDEN from doing so. Any implementation that does not support SET OF CHAR >is useless for most purposes. SETs are almost never used for anything except >SET OF CHAR. > ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This last sentence is the one with which I wish to differ. I used to think this way when the only systems I programmed were character-oriented; however, programming systems like the Mac has changed that perception. I almost never use SETs for anything other than WORD and LONGWORD operations anymore, the exception being an occasional foray into something like a keyboard mapping. Just because most pedagogical exercises involving SET-oriented operations revolve around SET OF CHAR doesn't mean that the practical application of SETs is going to do so. -- Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. ------------ Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!