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Date: 14 Sep 89 19:51:44 GMT
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   From arpa!arizona.edu!icon-group-request Thu Sep 14 12:21:19 1989
   Date: 14 Sep 89 15:31:00 GMT
   
   I too miss var parameters, unfortuanately they require a new data type
   (to some extent at least) to implement.
   
I agree, they would be useful.  I also would like to see the equivalent of
argv[0] so that an Icon program could discover its name.

   I am planning on playing arround with adding some features to Icon and I would
   like to know what people are interested in and what people have worked on
   and what their experiences have been. I will be working on the ms-dos version.
   
If you are going to be working with the DOS implementation, let me note that my
biggest problem with it has been, without a doubt, memory management.  I run
Icon on several different types of UNIX machines without any difficulties but
on DOS I am forever playing with [STAT,STR,HEAP]SIZE trying to get a large
Icon program to just load.  Once loaded, there are lots of "dead stops" that
seem, somehow, to be associated with running out of some memory resource.
It has been a very frustrating task to simply port a running Icon program 
into the DOS environment.  I realize that this is caused, not by the Icon
implementation, but by restrictions imposed by DOS.  What I need is more help
and information from Icon as to what is really going on with memory management.

The DOS version needs some tools, or indicators, that monitor or report on
memory usage.  Where is the memory going, how much, how fast, etc.  Perhaps
some data could be dumped at the conclusion of every garbage collection that
would help in understanding the programs' needs for memory resources.

   What I plan to play with are:
   
      Arrays - static sized multiple dimnensioned arrays, will be more space
               and time efficient than lists. A procedure will be used to
	       generate an empty array.
   
      A range data type that can be converted into that needed for subscripting
      strings. (I'm not sure this is really needed, and I'm not sure that the
      current string range mechanism won't work, I have to read the
      implementation book.
   
      variable parameters, and maybe general pointer variables
   
      a system() function like I described earlier
   
As an old SNOBOL4/SPITBOL programmer from way the hell back, I must admit that
I miss in Icon the SNOBOL4/SPITBOL rather generous capabilities for tracing.
I'd like to see the equivalent functionality available in Icon.  The features
are well documented and were very useful.

   anyone who has comments on this please feel free to contact me. I've always
   wanted to hack with a compiler and Icon seems just right for that, complete
   source code, a manual which describes the designers philosophy behind
   everything etc. I wish to maintain as much of Icon's original philosophy as
   possible in my work.
   
   also, what are the additional documents which come with the implementation
   documentation package? I may need to order them, I've signed out the
   implementation book from my school library (they have a neat cs section,
   they have the Snobol implementation book also)
   
   Frank Filz
   

Joe T. Hall
AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Naperville, Illinois 60566-7050
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