Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!ncar!ico!rcd From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Compiled PostScript Summary: OK, here's a deficiency (for the nth time!) Message-ID: <1990Jan9.041946.18083@ico.isc.com> Date: 9 Jan 90 04:19:46 GMT References: <1666@intercon.com> <17581@rpp386.cactus.org> Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO Lines: 16 woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes: > ... I challenge you to pinpoint *ANY* major deficiency of PS for > general purpose programming... The language has latent types and dynamic binding. This introduces an inherent inefficiency which will become objectionable in any program for which the execution time of the average primitive operator reaches the same order of magnitude as the execution time required to determine the types of operands and construct the result descriptor. If you fuss about formal checking, you'll also note that the type-correctness of a program cannot be checked until execution time. These limitations are inherent. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Mr. Natural says, "Use the right tool for the job."