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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!rochester!sher
From: sher@rochester.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Modula 2 an insufficient language (mild flame)
Message-ID: <5839@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Jan-85 04:09:22 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.5839
Posted: Mon Jan 28 04:09:22 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Jan-85 07:08:07 EST
Sender: sher@rochester.UUCP
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 34

From: sher

Sometime in the recent past I had read on the net how modula 2 was a strongly
typed language but flexible enough for system programming and one
which had data encapsulation built into the language.  I thought "How
neat! just the language to do image hacking in!"  This did not work.
I ran immeadiately into this problem.  I needed to store images in a
data structure.  This data structure should be able to store any image
whose elements were of the right type.  Thus I started to write:
TYPE Image = RECORD
	number_cols : CARDINAL;
	number_rows : CARDINAL;
	image : ???


There is no way to have a streach array in MODULA 2!  The only
variable size data structure is a linked list!  (Only a lisp hacker
would store an image in a linked list).  Don't tell me about
extensions to the language in various implementations.  If I have to
extend the language to do something trivial like this then that
language is worthless!

Note I have just speant 8 hours trying to get some code working that 
trys to allocate arrays whose size is only known at runtime.  I tried
to use the supplied loopholes and even tried using a C allocation
routine.  I am now giving up on this worthless language and will code
from now on in C happy in the knowledge that there still is not another
supported (at least here) language that is usable.

(Another hole in Modula 2 that have been commented on are that
one can not have constants whose values are hidden (not from the code
but from the code writer).  

-David Sher