Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!noao!arizona!gudeman
From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Answers, Chapter 2: to point or not to point
Message-ID: <26692@megaron.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 22 Oct 90 21:24:08 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 23

In article  <66254@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
]...  The advantage of high-level structures is two-fold: ...
] 2) it's possible for
]the compiler to make use of the semantic properties of these higher
]level structures to generate better code....

You should qualify this as "the advantage of the high-level structures
I have been discussing".  High-level structures in general are no
easier to implement efficiently --and usually a good deal harder--
than low-level structures.  For example run-time type checking,
generalized lookup tables, pattern matching, unification, term
rewriting, and automatic storage management are all much higher level
than the features you have been discussing.

In fact I wouldn't even use the term "high-level" to qualify most of
the things you have discussed.  I know it is non-standard, but the
terminology for classifying data structures has not kept up with rest
of the field.  I'd call most of your suggestions medium-level.
-- 
					David Gudeman
Department of Computer Science
The University of Arizona        gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
Tucson, AZ 85721                 noao!arizona!gudeman