Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!uunet!cbmvax!skrenta
From: skrenta@cbmvax.commodore.com (Rich Skrenta)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: C's sins of commission
Message-ID: <14972@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 8 Oct 90 19:59:17 GMT
References: <64618@lanl.gov) <2883@igloo.scum.com) <2171@enea.se> <1990Oct8.135551.21639@arnor.uucp>
Reply-To: skrenta@cbmvax.commodore.com (Rich Skrenta)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 40

In article <2171@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
> 
> Of course pointers are a necessary thing. Then it's an issue whether
> you make them explicit like in C, Ada or Pascal, or hide them a
> little and call them references like in Eiffel.

Suppose I eliminate pointers from my language and instead provide the
programmer with high-level data structures such as lists and arrays.
Won't he just use integer indexes as "pointers" into these data structures
if he needs them?  Isn't this what typically happens in Pascal programs,
where pointers are not as versatile as they are in C?  Are the programs
any more readable because I say

	int i; a[i]

to dereference instead of

	struct foo *p; *p ?

In article <1990Oct8.135551.21639@arnor.uucp> lowry@lusitania.watson.ibm.com (Andy Lowry) writes:

>The Hermes programmer has NO notion of pointer in any of
>its various guises.  There is NO way for the programmer to specify
>aliasing or shared data of any kind.  We provide high-level data types
>called "tables" that subsume most of the uses that pointers are
>traditionally put to (linked data structures, character strings and
>other arrays).

Sure, if Hermes gives me my tree, linked list and array, I probably won't
need pointers as much as I do in C--the data structures have already been
implemented for me.

However, if I want to make something that isn't directly supported by the
language, I'll have to use my integer array index "pointers" to do it.
Can Hermes stop me from doing that?

Rich
-- 
Rich Skrenta
skrenta@cbmvax.commodore.com