Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: C's sins of commission Message-ID: Date: 7 Oct 90 19:47:16 GMT References: <151675@felix.UUCP> <64618@lanl.gov> <2883@igloo.scum.com> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 12 In article <2883@igloo.scum.com> nevin@igloo.UUCP (Nevin Liber) writes: > pointers aren't needed nearly as much as they use to be; heck, code > seems to be more readable w/o them. In languages such as Icon and > LISP I find that I don't even miss them. Last time I checked the primary data objects in Lisp were the symbol and the pointer. (oh sure, a DOTPR is a constrained pointer (well, pointer pair)... but when it can in principle point to any data or code object it's just as dangerous as pointers in C. What makes it safe is the limited types of the objects it can point to: other pointers or symbols. It can't point to the second part of a DOTPR, or into a primitive, or the middle of a symbol). -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com