Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: ambiguous ?
Message-ID: <14112@lanl.gov>
Date: 23 Oct 89 21:55:29 GMT
References: <6638@ficc.uu.net>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 17

From article <6638@ficc.uu.net>, by peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
> If you believe this I'd suggest you look into topics like object-oriented
> languages, languages with generators, and so on. There you will find your
> established literature supporting side-effects.

No, I will find literature about languages which have side effects built
into their expressions.  I will not find literature here that establishes
that it is a good idea to do so.  It is particularly hard to do such
research and few have attempted it.  So far, side effects haven't fared
too well.  Since I do considerable research on language design, I have
probably read most of the books/articles that you are recommending - as
well as others.

However, if you really want my opinion on this:  the programming language
should have no built-in operators with side effects and should have no
intrinsic functions with side effects.  The user can define functions
and operators to do anything he wants - side effects or not.