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From: isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: C's sins of commission (was: (pssst...fortran?))
Message-ID: <1990Sep20.161852.22977@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 20 Sep 90 16:18:52 GMT
References: <4905@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <63475@lanl.gov>
Organization: Institute for Sensory Research
Lines: 27

In article <63475@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>From article <4905@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au>, by brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony):
>> Yes you are. You are leaving out memory mapped I/O and operating system
>> vectors and other disgusting cludges that make the computing world go
>> round. Other than than you are spot on!
>And, not an extended Fortran either - passing arrays with call-by-reference
>is quite adequate to tell the system where my I/O buffer is to be.

Now in C it's easy to go MyPtr=(Pointer)0x100  In fortran, it's a 
pain. At least in the one's I've used I'd have to use IPEEK and IPOKE
functions to access memory in this way.
I suppose it could be done via
   CALL MYSUB(ivalue,100)

SUBROUTINE MYSUB(ivalue,MYADD())
   MYADD(0)=ivalue

But let's face it, what's the difference between them?
None.
They both allow you to get into trouble.
So why complain about being allowed to do EASILY what you
can do in any other language with a little effort.
This further illustrates what started the entire thread-
FORTRAN is UGLY and a PAIN for things that use a lot of pointers.
--
Mike Schechter, Computer Engineer,Institute Sensory Research, Syracuse Univ.
InterNet: Mike_Schechter@isr.syr.edu isr@rodan.syr.edu Bitnet: SENSORY@SUNRISE