Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-ses!cricket
From: cricket@hp-ses.SDE.HP.COM (Jiminy Cricket)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: The White Paper
Message-ID: <3960004@hp-ses.SDE.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 89 17:57:54 GMT
References: <31904@cci632.UUCP>
Organization: Integrated Office Systems, Palo Alto
Lines: 35


    % = Achille Petrilli
    # = Nat Mishkin
    > = Joshua Levy
    
    > Apollo makes it very difficult to use any data representation except 
    > their's (NDR).  Sun makes it easy to replace their representation (XDR), 
    > if you want to.
    
    # Sure.  And I don't like C, but since the 68000 instruction set is public,
    # I can write a compiler for my own language.  What's the point?  Most
    # people don't want to write compilers; they want to get their jobs done.
    
    Using your compiler analogy:  C is simple.  I understand how to write
    a compiler for it.  Even though I never will, the fact that I could is 
    very important.  It shows that the language is understandable.  The fact
    that I could write an XDR compiler shows how easy and straight forward
    the language is.  The fact that I can not for NDR shows the problem; that
    NDR is compilcated.
   
Whoa.  What?  I think you'd better take some time to qualify your terms.  To
say that because it's easy to write a compiler for a language makes it "easy
and straightforward" (for a programmer, anyway) is ludicrous.  To my mind, 
more abstraction brings with it both an "easier and [more] straighforward" 
programming paradigm, but often at the cost of greater compiler or interpreter 
complexity - just the reverse of your claim.  C is "simple"?  I beg to differ.  C, to many folks, is a nasty, grubby language.  Smalltalk, on the other hand, 
is based on a clear, consistent paradigm.  But try writing a Smalltalk 
compiler.

cricket

Hewlett-Packard Corporate			cricket@winnie.corp.hp.com
Palo Alto, California

cricket