Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!aunro!alberta!ami-cg!cg From: cg@ami-cg.UUCP (Chris Gray) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Amiga OS *IS* state of the art Message-ID: Date: 3 Apr 91 17:37:56 GMT References: <1003@cbmger.UUCP> <12390@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Organization: Not an Organization Lines: 18 In article <12390@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) writes: [talking about Geoworks Ensemble] >Why can't we have ONE call that creates/destroys ANY system structure? > > IE: rastport = CreateSysStruct(CSS_RASTER); Arrrghhh! Please, no! Strong type checking is added to programming languages for a reason - to help reduce bugs. Overly generic calls like the above require changes to the LANGUAGE to provide any protection. I'm not too keen on the TAGS stuff either - I'm still puzzling out what I can do to the Draco language to try to support them reasonably. I'm sure the same problems come up with Pascal, Modula-2, etc. -- Chris Gray alberta!ami-cg!cg or cg%ami-cg@scapa.cs.UAlberta.CA