Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!arizona!mike
From: mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Wording concerning noalias
Summary: noalias considered harmful
Message-ID: <3562@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 25 Jan 88 17:43:12 GMT
References: <10155@mimsy.UUCP>, <7072@brl-smoke.ARPA> <1988Jan23.223128.27313@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 23

Thanks to the person who posted the text of the "noalias" section of
the proposed standard. Although the author(s) did a good job of
describing a very complicated concept, reading it did nothing to
change my mind about this idea.  It still looks to me like the sort of
feature that, ten years from now, will cause people to shake their
heads and sigh.  That would be too bad, because I think that this
committee has, by and large, done an *extremely* good job.

If implementors of highly optimizing compilers want to provide noalias
as an extension to C, fine.  If, in five years, this proves to be a
great idea and everyone loves it, then it should perhaps be considered
for inclusion.  Right now it is both controversial and untested, and
has no business in a standard.





-- 

Mike Coffin				mike@arizona.edu
Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci.	{allegra,cmcl2,ihnp4}!arizona!mike
Tucson, AZ  85721			(602)621-4252