Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!praxis!simont
From: simont@praxis.co.uk (Simon Tait)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: What makes a language "easy" to program in?
Message-ID: <2454@newton.praxis.co.uk>
Date: 13 Jun 88 13:24:30 GMT
References: <10216@sol.ARPA> <1818@hubcap.UUCP> <29190@cca.CCA.COM> <11829@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: simont@praxis.co.uk (Simon Tait)
Organization: Praxis Systems plc, Bath, UK
Lines: 27

In article <11829@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>
>Something that would be interesting would be a semi-automatic system to
>turn `how' into `what'.  Suppose you had an system language, where
>you might feed in the original loop:
>
>	for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) a[i] = 0;
>
>and the system would ask, `Did you really mean set a[0] to 0, then
>a[1], etc., or did you just mean to set all of a to zero?'  If you
>answered the latter, it might `create' a construct:
>

I think the question 'Did you really mean...' is irrelevant.
The statement 'for...' works equally well as a specification,
whether the generated code includes parallel or sequential operations.
I would expect the system to pick the implementation which works out
quickest on average (:-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Tait,
ELLA Group,                         Telephone (0225) 444700.  
Praxis Systems plc,                 Telex 445848 PRAXIS G.  
20 Manvers Street,                  Facsimile (0225) 65205.
Bath BA11PX,
England.
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