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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Answers, Chapter 1: TeX
Message-ID: <2512:Nov607:37:4590@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 90 07:37:45 GMT
References: <27094@megaron.cs.arizona.edu> <4837@lanl.gov>
Organization: IR
Lines: 19

In article <4837@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
> > [...]            There is no reason why pointers in some language
> > could not be defined to be bounded and unaliased.  If pointers were
> > defined that way, then pointers would have property X. [...]
> In which case, why call them pointers?  Surely to call such things
> "pointers" would be to use "specialized terminology that the net
> public in general do not share."

But many of us agree in substance with your definition of pointers as
objects to which you assign the ``address'' (whatever that is) of
another object, and which you ``dereference'' to get the value of or
store into that object. That's the essence of a pointer, and adding
assertions to pointers doesn't take away that essence.

(By the way, I don't know anyone who agrees with you that addresses in
the above definition need to have anything to do with machine addresses.
But that's a minor quibble.)

---Dan