Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:11387 comp.arch:5553
Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Self-modifying code
Message-ID: <3023@geac.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 88 13:11:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: geac.3023
References: <33441@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Organization: GEAC Computers, Toronto, CANADA
Lines: 28

From article <33441@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>, by lisper-bjorn@CS.YALE.EDU (Bjorn Lisper):
> In article <12357@ut-sally.UUCP> nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
>>In article <5254@june.cs.washington.edu>, pardo@june.cs.washington.edu
> (David Keppel) writes:

[a long, and generally well-reasoned debate elided]

>>Sorry, no.  I've heard LOTS of arguments against programs that generate their
>>own code, 

  Gentles, could we ***PLEASE*** reserve the term "self-modifying code" for
code which actually modifies itself on the fly (eg, for generating
indexes by instruction modification instead of using index registers)?

  Much of what is being discussed here is part of the well-known and
respectable "generate and execute" paradigm. The only difference
between this and the normal code-generation paradigm is that an
application generates code at run-time, not a compiler at a previous
time.

  Mixing the two is making this discussion "noisy".

--dave (sorry about the pedantry, but its important) c-b
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.  {mnetor yunexus utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers Ltd.,  |  Computer science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,   |  memory, if not its mind,
 Markham, Ontario.     |  every six months.