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From: quale@picard.cs.wisc.edu (Douglas E. Quale)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: On whether C has first-class composable functions
Message-ID: <1991Feb5.144815.23239@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 5 Feb 91 14:48:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: spool.1991Feb5.144815.23239
References: <14484:Feb206:54:1191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1991Feb4.160639.2766@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <29224:Feb419:06:0191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
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In article <29224:Feb419:06:0191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>In article <1991Feb4.160639.2766@spool.cs.wisc.edu> quale@picard.cs.wisc.edu (Douglas E. Quale) writes:
>> Dan, sometimes I think we don't speak the same language.
>
>Look, static allocation is not an ``arbitrary limit,'' and when you say
>``fixed, arbitrary limit'' people will assume that the programmer used
>some fixed number, say 1000, as a limit. That's not true here.
>

Dan, static allocation of functions is an arbitrary limit.

The *only* portable implementation of compose in C statically allocated the
composed functions.  If you compile the program with 50 statically allocated
functions and then try to compose 51 functions, you're screwed.

If you compile the program with 500 statically allocated functions and try
to compose 501 functions, you're screwed again.  Etc.

If YOU have a portable implementation of compose in C that returns a
function pointer and doesn't limit the number of composes to some compile
time fixed number, then post it or mail it to me.

This IS an arbitrary limit.

-- Doug Quale