Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!orchid!atbowler
From: atbowler@orchid.waterloo.edu (Alan T. Bowler [SDG])
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: C machine
Message-ID: <12219@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 88 18:34:12 GMT
References: <7535@alice.UUCP> <8226@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <461@auvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: atbowler@orchid.waterloo.edu (Alan T. Bowler [SDG])
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 26

In article <461@auvax.UUCP> rwa@auvax.UUCP (Ross Alexander) writes:
>I remember Tom Duff hacking on our GCOS/TSS implementation of B, long long
>ago, with exactly the same intent.  He created a whole whack of <op>$ things
>(i.e., +$, -$, *$, /$) which assumed the object was a float.  Not a nice
>language to actually use...
>
Actually, the operators are #+ #* #/ etc., and as I recall it was
Renaldo Braga that did it while he was writing the compiler.
The changes to the language were not a "hack".  They made floating
point numbers fit into the language in a manner consistent with
the rest of the language.

The point to realize is that B is a rather elegant small language
with a uniform view of objects and how they are handled.  The world
of B consists of a linear array of cells (words if you like) on which
operations such as addition, assignment, indirection, function call,
and transfer (i.e. GOTO). are performed.  This gives the programmer
considerable flexibility to express his algorithm, but like everything
else is open to abuse.  The language maps nicely onto a class of machine
archetecture, and is well suited to the class of programming tasks
that is usally considered "systems programming"  (utilities, compilers
editors etc).  The fact that it is typeless does give problems
when you try to move out of this area.  That is it doesn't carry
well to byte addressed machines, and is not suited to numerical
applications.  (The floating point is good enough to calculate some
things like percentage of a resource that has been used etc).