From -413974219260661180 X-Google-Thread: f78e5,174aa7b34b06a51 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!news2.euro.net!newsfeed.vmunix.org!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!stump.algebra.com!devnull From: hickin@nortel.com ("John Hickin") Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: Is this really unspecified behavior? Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:08:15 GMT Organization: Nortel Networks Lines: 48 Sender: mail2news@demon.net Approved: fjh@cs.mu.oz.au (Fergus Henderson , moderator of comp.std.c++) Message-ID: References: <1132759176.368850.264850@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1132933832.802917.153350@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1133551647.532929.325730@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <1133583412.951239.208510@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1133910546.716987.80030@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <0l5ep1ppfhdj5p1pcu7e4na4ub0vjajlq3@4ax.com> <87oe3e8e0c.fsf@boost-consulting.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.news.demon.net X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1135051710 14133 158.152.254.254 (20 Dec 2005 04:08:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:08:30 +0000 (UTC) X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1506 X-Priority: 3 X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at cs.mu.OZ.AU X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Received: (from fjh@localhost) by mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9/Submit) id jBK48FGg017630; Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:08:15 +1100 (EST) X-Path: comp-std-cpp-robomod!not-for-mail X-NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:06:17 +0000 (UTC) X-Delivered-To: std-c++@ucar.edu X-Authentication-Warning: mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU: fjh set sender to devnull@stump.algebra.com using -f X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1506 X-Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.std.c++:2850 ""Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email)"" wrote in message news:IrqFvJ.D85@beaver.cs.washington.edu... > Hyman Rosen wrote: > > David Abrahams wrote: > > > >> What's the biggest problem? > > > > > > As I have said many times, programming languages are a means > > for driving the actions of a computer. As such, the actions > > that a program specifies should be unambiguous. If you would > > like for your programming language to have the ability to > > state that a set of actions should be carried out in an > > arbitrary rather than in a defined order, then this should be > > an explicit construct within the language, so that this > > ambiguity is manifestly clear to the readers of the program. > > Very nice! And to that I'd add: "Programs must be written for people to > read, and only incidentally for machines to execute" - Abelson and Sussman. > > > Andrei > With the existing rules I believe that it is possible to write programs for people to read, so I think that while being a nice -- even easily readable statement -- it really should not have too much weight in the debate. OTOH, I think that complete specification will be useful for those who want to write program generators. Within 10 years nobody will be writing C++ (or Java) -- it will all be code generated directly from specifications. For those who believe that complete specification will kill optimization opportunities, there will be ample new opportunities tweaking model compilers. Regards, John. --- [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://www.jamesd.demon.co.uk/csc/faq.html ]