Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!mcnc!uvaarpa!murdoch!astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU!gl8f
From: gl8f@astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Re^8: Some things that pointer-less languages can't do efficiently
Message-ID: <1990Nov1.213019.14842@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 1 Nov 90 21:30:19 GMT
References: <422@data.UUCP> <35S67X@xds13.ferranti.com> <423@data.UUCP>
Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia
Lines: 13

In article <423@data.UUCP> kend@data.UUCP (Ken Dickey) writes:

>What is wrong with using the standard definition of pointer?

Pointers are implemented in languages in ways that are easy or hard to
optimize. If you think there's one definition that fits all pointer
implementations, then it's a definition which is totally useless to
someone talking about optimization. A definition that tells you a lot
about optimization might not tell you much about other properties. And
so on.

Just because a textbook gives an overly-general answer to a subtle
question doesn't mean that's the correct answer.