Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!tuvie!brock
From: brock@tuvie (Inst.f.Prakt.Info 1802)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Are procedure types breaking modules?
Keywords: procedure types, modules
Message-ID: <690@tuvie>
Date: 25 Apr 89 08:53:24 GMT
References: <688@tuvie> <849@htsa.uucp>
Reply-To: brock@tuvie.UUCP (Inst.f.Prakt.Info 1802)
Organization: Technical University of Vienna, EDP-Center
Lines: 25

In article <849@htsa.uucp> fransvo@htsa.UUCP (Frans van Otten) writes:
>[my remark...]
>>you pass the procedure dynamically. I do not believe that this
>>feature is really undesirable, however was it really intended?
>
>It probably was not intended.  I think Wirth thinks of a lot of
>nice features for a programming language, but doesn't consider
>all consequences before publishing.  The fact that he manages
>to write a lot of contradictionary things (even within one book)
               can You justify this??      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>supports this.  Also, he is not clear on why some things are or
>are not allowed.  Why is it that you are not allowed to assign a
>local procedure to a procedure variable ?
This is absolutely clear: a local procedure has possibly a scope
that globals have not.
                                            Why can't a standard
>procedure be assigned to a procedure variable ?
Because some of them are _generic_. It would really exceed the
aim of Modula to allow generic procs in general. Take for
example SIZE if You assign SIZE to a procedure variable, which
is already typed, the result would be already fixed. Well it
would make some sense, but not very much at all...
>

Ulrich