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From: bart@reed.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.mod2
Subject: Re: IO (Re: Overloading)
Message-ID: <2714@reed.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Mar-86 13:59:14 EST
Article-I.D.: reed.2714
Posted: Fri Mar  7 13:59:14 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 09:07:15 EST
References: <860305-123100-1751@Xerox>
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 34

> Here's a total flame.  No
> I strongly disagree that basic sequential I/O should go into a language.
> Here at Xerox, could you have anticipated these I/O methods, or would
> you like to change our compiler every time we prototype a better I/O
> system (which we've done several times already, with new modules)?
>
> ....
> ....

I can't TAKE it any more!!  It seems clear to me that the way it SHOULD have
been done is for Modula-2 to have a generalized mechanism for letting 
users write 

1) VARARGS (variable number of parameters) and 
2) variable type of parameter 

routines.  Then if one gets excited about not having "writeln", one can
write a writeln library.  And if one later gets windows, one can add an
optional extra parameter to indicate a window number.  Etc.  The things
that C, for example, didn't do right in this case were

1) Provide a standard mechanism for determining the type of an untyped parm.
2) Provide a standard way of counting and accessing each argument in a
varargs list.

Modula-2 open arrays suffer in that an open array is still a single parameter,
which restricts the type of each of its elements, and that it isn't counted
upon passing -- in short, they don't do what is wanted.  

Would it really have been that hard to do this right?  Is it too late in the
game to tack it on?

							Bart Massey
							..tektronix!reed!bart