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From: gsteckel@vergil.East.Sun.COM (Geoff Steckel - Sun BOS Hardware CONTRACTOR)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Unusual instructions and constructions
Summary: c++/other obj-ish lang. might help a little
Message-ID: <4748@eastapps.East.Sun.COM>
Date: 8 Mar 91 19:00:39 GMT
References: <7499@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
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In article <7499@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>There clearly is a major disagreement on what "should" be in an architecture
>or language.  One of the arguments given against including assembler code is
>that compiler optimization is at least made more difficult, and portability is
>lost.

One thing lost in the recent debate is the possibility of applying `object'
methodology to the complex operation debate.  The C language already has
the ability to return a structure from a function; the `divrem' function
could return   struct div_and_rem { int quotient ; int remainder } ;

C++ (admitting its many faults) can implement this sort of operation easily.
The usage (not the formal definition) of the language (and object-like languages
in general) includes the idea of `standard object heirarchies'.  These are
currently distributed for C++ from a number of sources.  This seems to be
a way for the {numerical analysts, crypto specialists, molbiogeneticists, etc.}
to introduce their special operators, distribute them, standardize them, etc.

For efficiency of human time, the users of the extended functionality would
have to organize a bit to coordinate development and distribution of prototypes
and specifications.  Once common sets of these functions stabilized a bit,
it would then be more likely that vendors would be willing to invest in special
efforts to improve versions for particular hardware.

Just a thought...
	geoff steckel (gwes@wjh12.harvard.EDU)
			(...!husc6!wjh12!omnivore!gws)
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Sun Microsystems, despite the From: line.
This posting is entirely the author's responsibility.