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From: KARLJ@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
Subject: Re: Shoulds arrays start at zero or one?
Message-ID: <21661@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 90 19:51:34 GMT
References: <5487@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <252@usblues.UUCP> <1990Jan16.173034.25686@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
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Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
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In article <1990Jan16.173034.25686@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes:
> 
> Of course, the performance implications of "var" are enormous and often
> not told to Pascal students. "I'm passing this 50k array into a procedure,
> and, oh, well I don't want to modify it, so I'd better not make it var."
> Then your stoopid Pascal compiler makes a local copy...
> 
This is so very true!  The same thing can be said about global
variables.  Often, instructors will tell their students to never use
globals.  Instead, they have them pass the globals into a procedure as
a val parameter.  In the same vain, they tell students to only pass
variables in as var only if a change is to be made.

It would seem to be more prudent to inform students of exactly what
happens when a variable is passed and urge extreme caution; however, I
don't get to make the rules.
> 
> Greg Lindahl
> gl8f@virginia.edu                                  Astrophysicists for Choice.
karl smith
karlj@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu

"But before I rise, man, why not roll still another one, to make sure
I'm really stoned, because sometimes, man, in my condition, it is hard
to tell."               Horse Badorties
                       _The Fan Man_   by William Kotzwinkle