Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!husc6!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis
From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Suggestion for the LSC compiler writers
Message-ID: <1334@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 89 07:25:15 GMT
References: <1993@tank.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 27

In article <1993@tank.uchicago.edu> phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
>It would be trivial for a compiler to include an optional
>"anti-efficiency" switch so that each time the compiler creates an
>assignment (e.g.  to a pointer), the compiler inserts code that checks
>if this location is outside the data segment.  If there is, a warning or
>abort routine could be called.  This would be extremely trivial to do
>for the compiler implementer, and would go very far in making the
>development process much less painful. 

Unfortunately, this would also make the environment useless for a large
number of people. How do you carry around references to functions or
procedures? And what if I want to call traps directly (bad practice, but
some people use it for speed in time-critical routines)? There is also
no way to assure that your code doesn't go wild in lots of other ways, and
_then_ trash everything.

The problem is that this method would be good for code which doesn't deal
much with Mac System stuff. On the other hand, that is the kind ot code that
least needs protection. Figuring out what is legal and what is not is most
difficult (perhaps undecideable) in precisely those cases where it would be
most useful.

I think that we must wait for the '851 (or '30), and for software to make
it go.

Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.uucp