Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!hjm
From: hjm@cernvax.UUCP (Hubert Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Programming
Message-ID: <854@cernvax.UUCP>
Date: 24 Oct 88 13:48:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: cernvax.854
References: <339@mozart.UUCP> <1735@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: hjm@cernvax.UUCP (Hubert Matthews)
Organization: CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 39

In article <1735@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>
>dlbaer@mozart.UUCP (Dennis L. Baer ) wrote:
>
>> PROGRAMMERS,try the Structured Programming Language and you will have an
>> opportunity to switch to a language that is better than PASCAL and C...
>> Why SWITCH to SPL? Here are the reasons! ...
> 
>> SPL has better FOR loops with INTEGER and REAL indicies and increments.
>
>:-)  You mean I can't use complex numbers to index an iteration?    :-)
>:-)  For shame!  This language obviously still needs some work...   :-)

REAL DO loop indices have been available in FORTRAN-77 for some time now.
They are now being designated deprecated features that might be taken out
of the language as they are considered to be a bad thing.  I got bitten once
by a typo where I put the variable on the wrong declaration line like this:

      REAL A(100), FOO
      INTEGER J

and then used a DO 10 FOO = 1, 10 loop which worked, except passing a REAL
to a subroutine that expects an INTEGER is a real no-no.  You can even use
such dubious constructs as A(1.3) if you really want to make your friends
gag. :-}

Whatever SPL is, I don't think anyone in their right mind would use
such nasties as that.  I cannot see any purpose for it and it's also
non-portable.  Consider a loop like DO 10 A = 1.0, 1.0E6, 0.1.  How many
times will it loop?  What about rounding errors?  What will be the
value of A after half of the iterations?  Uuugh.  If that's the sort of
tricks that SPL plays, then I wouldn't recommend it to anyone (not even
a speed-freak C programmer :-) :-) ).



-- 

	Hubert Matthews