Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!texsun!pollux!ti-csl!m2!gateley
From: gateley@m2.csc.ti.com (John Gateley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: multiple values
Message-ID: <85644@ti-csl.csc.ti.com>
Date: 27 Jul 89 17:59:50 GMT
Sender: news@ti-csl.csc.ti.com
Reply-To: gateley@m2.UUCP (John Gateley)
Organization: TI Computer Science Center, Dallas
Lines: 16
Cc: nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk

In an article in comp.arch, Nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk claims that
in order for multiple values to be useful, you must be able to
pass them around as structures.

I disagree with this, if the language needs structures, add structures.
If the language needs multiple values, add multiple values. They
are two different orthogonal concepts: a structure is somthing which
holds several objects; multiple values are several objects returned
from a function. A structure has creators/accessors for accessing
the object, and unlimited extent (or whatever default extent objects
in the language have). Multiple values have two 'operations': return
and accept. These operations are extensions of the single value returning
function operations. Multiple values have limited extent.

John
gateley@m2.csc.ti.com