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From: andree@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Self-modifying code - (nf)
Message-ID: <4894@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Jan-84 23:07:50 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4894
Posted: Thu Jan 12 23:07:50 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jan-84 00:59:55 EST
Lines: 24

#R:fortune:-215700:uokvax:9000018:000:953
uokvax!andree    Jan 11 20:58:00 1984

Ok, enough. I've got to flame (mildly).

First, under normal circumstances, there is NO good reason to write
self-modifing code. Most of the things posted here could be done
by on-the-fly code creation. This is NOT the same thing, and can
actually be done cleanly (even in assembler!)

The trouble is, very few languages will let you create and run
code on the fly. You practically HAVE to have an intepretive system,
and not all of those give you this facility. The best langauge
at this, is, of course LISP. FORTH is nearly as good. SNOBOL doesn't
do to badly either. I can't think of any others off the top of my
head. Are there others?

Final note: `normal circumstances' means that you have the source,
and aren't worried about getting that last microsecond/byte out of
the system. There are cases where you need to do this, and such
things are reasonable to do to meet spec (providing you have nice,
clean, comment HLL soruce somewhere!).

	<mike