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From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Big files, and lots of 'em: 32 bits is not enough
Message-ID: <2400@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 9 Aug 90 14:37:11 GMT
References: <5539@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <13285@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <30728@super.ORG> <13667@cbmvax.commodore.com> <40644@mips.mips.COM> <1990Aug8.222644.23683@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 29

In article <1990Aug8.222644.23683@watdragon.waterloo.edu> tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) writes:

| And I think it's a *bad* idea, as some have proposed, to create a new datatype
| for file offsets as opposed to addresses as opposed to integers.

  However, X3J11 didn't agree with that idea, and there is a type for
offset in a file, and pointer types are not the same as integers.

|                                                                   As Henry
| Spencer and others have repeatedly pointed out, the VAX made us all sloppy by
| allowing us to interchange pointers, integers, and offsets promiscuously.  But
| too late, we're stuck with it; there's not enough programmer-years in the
| lifetime of the universe to fix all the useful software that does this.

  Actually, since there are a lot of machines which have hardware which
functions using a diferent paradigm then the VAX, a lot of old software
has been upgraded, and most new compilers generate warnings which
encourage programmers to write portable code. Commercial software is
being written more portably to allow use in more markets.

|                                                                         And
| y'know, in my heart of hearts, I'm not sure it's a bad thing; it certainly
| allows the use of some extremely elegant and rigorously simple programming
| paradigms.

  Absolutely no comment.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me