Article View: comp.lang.modula2
Article #4261Re: Wirth's paper "From Modula to Oberon"
From: Dick Dunn
Date: Fri, 20 May 1988 20:42
Date: Fri, 20 May 1988 20:42
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John Nagle:
> In each of Wirth's languages there is some tragic flaw, something
> that drives users straight up the walls. What will it be in Oberon?
The lack of a counted loop ("for" statement) gets my nomination for tragic
flaw.
With most imperative languages in the past 30+ years having a counted loop,
you'd think it would have proved its merit. Even languages that don't have
it (like C) have evolved paradigms for it that are accepted among the
language's users. [That is, most C programmers write in the form
"for (i=0; i<n; i++)" without a second thought; that way they don't worry
about the various off-by-1's like starting at 1 or running to <=n...]
--
Dick Dunn UUCP: {ncar,cbosgd,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870
...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!im4u!ut-sally!ico!rcd From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2 Subject: Re: Wirth's paper "From Modula to Oberon" Summary: nomination for 'tragic flaw' Message-ID: <5260@ico.ISC.COM> Date: 20 May 88 20:42:56 GMT References: <INFO-M2%88051808492544@DB0TUI11> <17451@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO Lines: 16