🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <nevin-191192004649@90.20.3.209> nevin@apple.com (Nevin ":-]" Liber) writes:
>In article <TMB.92Nov19002135@arolla.idiap.ch>, tmb@arolla.idiap.ch (Thomas
>M. Breuel) wrote:
>> Actually, sadly, C dictates hardware design these days.

			......................

>I don't see anything wrong with getting rid of features that people aren't
>using.  If those features were popular, C probably wouldn't be as popular
>as it is today.  We have lots of CISC archetectures with cool features that
>very few people ever find useful.  Why waste the silicon?

>It's simply a feedback loop.  I much prefer it to having hardware and
>software people totally oblivious to each other.

The feedback loop is far more insidious than you make it to be.  Languages
are provided which lack features, and to get those features into a program
requires doing things which are not recognized as such.  Thus if a particular
machine instruction is used for some purpose, how does the hardware designer
find out about it?  They consult the language people, and except for the
GNU people, almost none of them seem to pay attention to the mathematicians,
physicists, chemists, etc.

So the hardware people consider C to be the be-all and end-all, and design
their hardware accordingly.  This would be like saying that mathematicians
should not teach proofs and arguments, because most people ignore them.  
They do, and we all suffer.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)