🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov11.155149.14744@rdg.dec.com> jch@rdg.dec.com (John Haxby) writes:
> ...
>In CLU, you can pass paramaters of type PROCTYPE to accomplish exactly
>the same thing, or you can use type parameterization (genericism if you like)
>for a similar mechanism for, often, much the same purpose.  CLU doesn't
>have references, yet alone pointers.
> ...

Actually, I think, _all_ variables in CLU are references,
except those of atomic types.  (Pretty much like LISP.)

It is a bad thing, IMO, that many languages force programmers
to use pointers or references even for purposes that would be
better solved by other means.  I would recommend people to read
Hoare's classic paper, "Recursive data structures" (Int. J. of
Computer and Information Sciences, Vol. 4 (1975) No. 2).
It's been reprinted at least in "Essays in Computing Science"
by Hoare and Jones (Prentice-Hall 1989).

It seems that not all objections against pointers in Hoare's paper
are extremely relevant, and some others have been obsoleted
by techical progress.  Enough good points still remain.

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Markku Sakkinen (sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi)
       SAKKINEN@FINJYU.bitnet (alternative network address)
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
University of Jyvaskyla (a's with umlauts)
PL 35
SF-40351 Jyvaskyla (umlauts again)
Finland
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