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From: kgs@dvncnms.Devoncnms.Unisys.COM (Ken Salter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Why no ** operator in Modula2?
Message-ID: <908@dvncnms.Devoncnms.Unisys.COM>
Date: 28 May 91 14:13:46 GMT
References: <1KBRSVP@math.fu-berlin.de>
Organization: Unisys Corporation, Devon Engineering Offices
Lines: 26

In article <1KBRSVP@math.fu-berlin.de> dww@math.fu-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) writes:
>The question came up in class today: Why is there no ** or ^
>(x to the nth power) operator in standard Modula2? 

I speculate that Modula2 contains no exponentiation operator for the 
same reason that Pascal (as defined Jensen and Wirth in "Pascal User
Manual and Report, second edition, Springer-Verlag 1978") contains no
exponentiation operator.  The beginning of the "Report" on page 133
states:

    The development of the language Pascal is based on two principal aims.
    The first is to make available a language suitable to teach programming
    as a systematic discipline based on certain fundamental concepts
    clearly and naturally reflected by the language.  The second is to
    develop implementations of the language which are both reliable and
    efficient on presently available computers.

One can argue that exponentiation does not support these aims.


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