Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!vsi1!octopus!avsd!childers
From: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: String lengths
Message-ID: <486@avsd.UUCP>
Date: 13 Feb 89 20:27:49 GMT
References: <8876@alice.UUCP> <765@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>
Reply-To: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Organization: die Edelstahlratte
Lines: 37

hascall@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (John Hascall) writes:

>In article <8876@alice.UUCP> dmr@alice.UUCP writes:

>>I don't think it has been demonstrated that the usual run of
>>C programs pays an extremely high cost in performance for their
>>string operations, though doubtless there are counterexamples
>>for particular machine architectures or particular programs.

>   This is a rather circular argument.  This is rather like
>   saying "I don't think it has been demonstrated that the usual
>   automobile pays an extremely high cost in performance for their
>   amphibious operations,..."

It's a lot easier to criticize two decades after the fact, to say, 'You
oughta do this ... why didn't you do THAT ?' instead of merely accepting
it as a foible of whichever language is under discussion.

I think what Mssr. Ritchie was trying to say was something along the lines
of, "OK, we messed up ... we tried for an elegant solution, treating text
as an array of characters. It was abstract, it was clean, we thought it'd
fly. It did. Not everybody likes it ... but it's not going to change, as
there are some subterranean assumptions that it would be wise to take into
account before this conversation goes much further."

>John Hascall
>ISU Comp Center
>Rx:  Apply :-) above as needed for pain.

-- richard


-- 
 *       "Do not look at my outward shape, but take what is in my hand."      *
 *                            -- Jalaludin Rumi, 1107-1173                    *
 *      ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers@tycho     *
 *          AMPEX Corporation - Audio-Visual Systems Division, R & D          *