🚀 go-pugleaf

> Under your proposed 3-tuple
> idea, the distinction between pointers and arrays is further narrowed.

Not at all. The *semantics* of pointers as addresses, and pointers as
3-tuples, are identical. A legal ANSI C program should operate identically
under either implementation. It's just a safety net... not a new concept.

[ And it's not my concept, either... much as I'd like to claim authorship,
  I didn't originate it. ]

> In
> fact, because of the way you've constructed it, the two concepts are now
> nearly identical since the aliasing can only be within the _same_ bounded
> object.

That was always true, it was just unchecked.

> For recursive data structures, either pointers or some other mechanism is
> still required.

And this is an important point. C can be implemented with a certain set of
minimal constructs. It's really a very low-level language. And at this level
pointers and arrays are the same... and the internals of recursive data
structures are visible. If you don't like that, use a higher-level language.
Treat C as a fancy assembler.

> (Actually, even recursive data structures may be implemented
> with arrays, but it is less elegant in the general case.)

Exactly. Pointers are more general than arrays.

> The point of this discussion is
> that pointers are not, and should not be treated, as a useful method of
> implementing arrays.

Not at all. Since pointers and arrays are isomorphic, that pointers are a
useful method of implementing arrays becomes a tautology.
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 _--_|\  `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>.
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