Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!maytag!water!ljdickey
From: ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: SYMBOL TABLE (was : Problem with )COPY )
Keywords: STSC APL*PLUS/UNX
Message-ID: <2270@water.waterloo.edu>
Date: 24 Apr 89 02:39:10 GMT
References: <575@moore.UUCP>
Reply-To: ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 35

I do not have anything helpful to say to Paul Maclauchlan, when he writes:
>When trying to clean up a heavily used workspace on the system
>1. )CLEAR, to make a fresh space for the new ws
>2. )SYMB 3000, to match the symbol table size in the old ws
>3. )COPY OLDWS
>4. Assign QuadLX and QuadELX
>5. )WSID OLDWS
>6. )SAVE
and so on, except to say, that I have done that too.

But I just want to complain about the necessity of any user ever having
to use the )SYMBOL command.  APL is a language that allows dynamic storage
allocation.  All APL users are accustomed to making statements like

	A <- A, MORE

and having more storage for "a" set aside.  Why should not this
same thinking have permeated into the thinking of the implementors?
Why should someone have to know, in advance, how many variables they
might need.  Why isn't the symbol table empty and small in a clear
ws, and why doesn't it grow as needed, dynamically, just as the
variables do in a ws?  To me, a SYMBOLS command is like a DIMENSION
statement.  It sets aside, in advance, space for pointers where
names and values are kept.  Why isn't this just another table, just
like all other arrays in APL?

There, I said it.

Any response?

-- 
    L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo.
	ljdickey@water.UWaterloo.ca	ljdickey@water.BITNET
	ljdickey@water.UUCP		..!uunet!watmath!water!ljdickey
	ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu