🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4501@crash.cts.com> wade@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes:

>         I do not understand why C does not support Nested routines.  Perhaps
> this will be added to the ANSI standard at some point in the future.  The
> nice thing is, backward compatability would not be an issue.  But such things
> happen slowly.  So I guess I'll just work around the deficeincy, as this is
> not something I must have to work in C.  Perhaps when an optimizing M2
> compiler comes out I'll switch back to M2.

They are not in C because it is difficult to implement them so that
they are speed-efficient.  If you look at the code generated for a
sub-procedure, it usually has to do things through one additional
level of indirection.

I doubt that something like it will be added to ANSI C.  First of all,
the speed-demons will rant and rave, secondly others will claim that
99% of that can be done via separately compiled modules.  Most
importantly, I believe that C++ will dominate the C market by the time
another ANSI C draft is written, and since C++ gives the scoping rules
that you are requesting, it will not be needed.

Personally, I wish there was a way to get some real good control over
scope and visibility (independently of each other) in C.  I think that
C++ will meet my needs.  DEC's Vax/VMS Pascal adds extensions that let
you directly control the scope, visibility, parameter passing method,
and just about everything else I can think of; and each is
independently controlled.  Alas, it's for VMS :-)

The efficiency of all HHLs can be brought to "almost" equal if you
really have a way cool optimizer (and if you are liberal about your
definition of "almost" ;-).  The problem is that a simple C compiler
will generate much faster code than a simple Pascal compiler; hence
the stereotypes of fast-C and slow-Pascal.  With the momentum that C
has, I doubt that many companies will dedicate enough capital to
producing such a good optimizer.  (I hear crowds yelling "so stick
with C so your base is more efficient!")

Of course, you could petition your local XJ11 ANSI member :-)

>         Wade.
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-- 
 Tom Limoncelli -- tlimonce@drunivac.Bitnet -- limonce@pilot.njin.net
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