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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Re: Assembly VS HOL: Having it both
Message-ID: <1366@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 15:58:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1366
Posted: Thu May 30 15:58:40 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 01:23:40 EDT
References: <439@wdl1.UUCP>
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 36

John Nagle writes:

>      Burroughs Algol was a high-level language, at least as high-level as C
> or Pascal.  So is PL/S.  But PL/360 is totally nonportable and makes the
> register structure of the target machine, for example,  very visible.  
> It's a different kind of language than most programmers are used to.
> One of the key properties of a medium-level language is that the programmer
> is not insulated from the machine architecture at all.

Burroughs Algol is a fairly machine-specific Algol - I certainly don't
know of another computer it would run on.  This is true in practice of
PL/S as well.  And I certainly wouldn't argue with the points about the
concept of a medium-level language being unfamiliar and their not
insulating the programmer from the architecture.  But I fail to see what
you're getting at.  All these failings (if they are failings in the
context in question) apply to assemblers as well.

What I would like to see is a good alternative to assembler language,
one that would allow high-level constructs when they are useful and low
level machine control when that it useful.  It is obvious that such a
language would have to be machine specific, though it is also
reasonable to suspect that some degree of portability in syntax could
be achieved (there have been portably assemblers written, believe it or
not).  However, I think portability is quite irrelevant.  If I want
low-level machine control I HAVE to give up portability, absent
considerations of what language I write in.

To restate in a sentence:  I'd like a language that gives me the power
and convenience and readability of a high-level language but the
low-level control of an assembler.  I see no reason for incompadibility
between those two needs.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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