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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: I/O operations in programming languages
Message-ID: <976@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Aug-83 17:42:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.976
Posted: Wed Aug 31 17:42:13 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Sep-83 03:01:21 EDT
References: <666@mit-eddie.UUCP>, <110@csd1.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 28

So sorry, but I misunderstood the original article. I THOUGHT that 
what was being discussed is an ideal language to do 'local area
networks' (magic phrase, fill in with whatever is current wherever
you are to discribe same). This was not the case, I am sorry to have
misunderstood.

i got this horrible concept of where a "file" was a 'data packet' (another
magic word, your word may be different), and the whole language had to
comprise every device driver known to man (and whatever other strange
creatures build devices).

Given that the language designer does a good job, and defines the behavior
of all the IO in excruciating detail -- so that anyone who corresponds to the
standard must by definition be compatible -- I do not think that it matters
whether the IO is in or out of the language. In fact, if it is in the
language, people like Whitesmiths cannot pull a sleazy trick of writing an
incompatible compiler which strictly speaking IS compatible for it is
only <stdio.h> (<std.h>) which is different. Whitesmiths can get away with it,
sure, but porting things to places which have a Whitesmith's C compiler is
a real pain...

(Actually, I am told that Whitesmith's now has a compatible <stdio.h>.
This is news to me, and I cannot personally vouch for its accuracy, but
the person who just told me is not known for making wildly innaccurate
statements. If this is the case then I say "Its about time!")

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura