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Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release

From bart <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.misc
Subject Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release
Date 2025-10-07 17:03 +0100
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <10c3dkj$1232k$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References (12 earlier) <10be779$2scen$1@dont-email.me> <10behvb$365mk$1@dont-email.me> <10bhl97$3hoao$2@dont-email.me> <10bpifl$3uh5a$1@paganini.bofh.team> <10c37rs$ql1i$1@dont-email.me>

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On 07/10/2025 15:25, Andy Walker wrote:
> On 03/10/2025 23:24, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> [I wrote:]
>>>         If you have "thousands" of functions in one application, then
>>> you're talking about something more substantial than anything I've
>>> ever written.  I suspect that such monsters are essentially not
>>> maintainable and not understandable by humans, which is why new bugs
>>> are always being discovered, usually only when something catastrophic
>>> happens.
>> One project that I am working on has more than 8000 exported functions
>> and of order 15000 in total (that is including internal functions
>> which can be only called within modules).  I find it maintainable
>> partially because there is a lot of small functions.  More precisely
>> main part of the program is about 210 thousends of wc lines
>> (about 120 kloc, that is after removing empty lines and commensts).
>> There is a lot of 1 line functions.
> 
>      Later you say "I only written part (few percent) of it, the rest
> is due to other people."  If, for the sake of a number, we assume that
> "few" is around 5, then your part of it is ~400 exported functions out
> of ~750 total, and around 6 kloc.  That suggests that your part is a
> much more reasonably-sized program, but there are absurdly too many
> functions.  Someone seems to have made a fetish out of one-liners!
> 
>      You are left with two problems:  (a) By implication, your
> project needs ~20 programmers;  Brooks's "Mythical Man Month" addresses
> the problems caused thereby;  no need for me to elaborate.  (b) No
> normal person can use 8000 functions;  not really even your own 400.
> It's too many to keep in your head [see also a nearby article which I
> will soon get around to writing (:-)].
> 
>> Concerning "what I have written", I only written part (few percent) of
>> it, the rest is due to other people.  And yes, there are bugs.  This
>> is mainly because program is doing a lot of complex things.  One
>> certainly could simplify some parts, but I do not think that major
>> reduction in size it possible without dropping functionality. [...]
> 
>      Yes, but the Unix philosophy /used/ to be to write tools rather
> then monsters.  These days, people seem to insist on monstrosities.  I
> don't see that as an improvement.

These are applications not little Unix utilities.

The last such app of mine is from last century, and it was considered 
small: the binary would fit on one floppy, uncompressed.

Yet it comprised some 2000 functions, in the compiled core, plus 2000 
functions spread around 100 scripting modules which are loaded on demand.

It needed that many for that interactive GUI app to be able to do its job.

On top of those are the functions within the add-on modules created by 
third parties. I don't include functions in imported libraries.

My current projects (interpreters, compilers, assemblers and so on) are 
on a smaller scale, but still have 600-1200 functions each.

Yeah, full-stack compilers are complicated. But my stuff is still 
1/1000th the size of products like LLVM.

>> And to have some perspective, let me mention discussion of Open
>> Office startup.  On Linux Open Office used to take substantial
>> time to start up.  The explantion was: Open Office had about
>> 250000 exported functions spread among tens of shared libraries.
> 
>      I believe you, but that's ridiculous.  Something somewhere
> has lost its way.

Those functions are from numerous shared libraries; they are not the 
core app. Such libraries are big: GTK for example may export 10,000 
functions.

That wouldn't be a problem (other than for the poor chap who has to 
learn them), but there appears to be an inefficiency in doing the 
dynamic linking. I suggested elsewhere that it could be done on-demand, 
since it is unlikely that all 250,000 functions would be needed during 
one session.

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Thread

Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-23 06:49 +0200
  Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-23 15:22 +0100
    Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-23 17:49 +0200
      Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-24 00:58 +0100
        Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-25 01:49 +0200
          Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-26 23:53 +0100
    Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-23 19:28 +0200
      Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-24 00:27 +0100
        Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-08-24 02:49 +0000
          Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-25 01:57 +0200
        Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-25 02:14 +0200
          Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-27 00:58 +0100
            Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-27 08:23 +0200
              Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-27 23:23 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-28 07:35 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-29 00:43 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-30 05:40 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-30 20:38 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-31 10:10 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-01 17:20 +0100
                Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-02 00:56 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-02 01:15 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-02 17:02 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-02 22:17 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-04 17:01 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-05 04:32 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-02 23:04 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-03 01:46 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release (was Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format) Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-04 00:30 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-10 17:15 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-10 23:57 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-11 07:27 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-11 09:42 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-11 17:16 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-09-27 00:41 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-27 14:38 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-09-29 01:15 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-29 16:05 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-29 18:57 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-30 15:58 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-09-30 17:48 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-09-29 19:08 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-30 23:23 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-01 23:00 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-02 16:55 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-02 21:51 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-04 12:38 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-04 14:04 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 13:47 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-04 15:03 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-04 15:07 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-04 18:40 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-04 19:46 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-07 16:37 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-07 17:16 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-07 23:58 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-08 01:20 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-08 16:10 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-08 17:41 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-09 00:53 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-09 01:02 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-08 01:09 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-07 22:27 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2025-10-08 00:20 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-04 22:00 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-05 00:31 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-05 01:52 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-05 03:15 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-05 11:05 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-05 20:20 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-06 09:44 +0200
                Higher order functions (was Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-06 10:01 +0200
                Re: Higher order functions (was Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release) David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-06 10:56 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-06 11:03 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-06 22:01 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-06 23:46 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-06 23:05 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-07 10:32 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-08 04:57 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-05 13:24 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-08 20:21 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-08 21:30 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-08 22:40 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-10 04:18 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-10 16:21 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-11 00:05 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-11 11:25 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-11 13:08 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-11 15:25 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-11 12:39 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-09 00:34 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-09 03:15 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2025-10-09 08:59 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-09 14:31 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2025-10-09 14:53 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2025-10-09 10:35 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-09 21:37 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-10 17:40 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-10 20:04 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-10 21:45 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-11 00:29 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-11 00:16 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-11 01:59 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-11 01:42 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-11 10:42 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-31 06:51 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-13 20:58 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-13 23:13 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-14 00:39 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-12 03:56 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-13 22:38 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-24 04:33 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-03 22:24 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-04 03:39 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-04 12:19 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-10-04 14:16 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-04 21:05 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-05 01:40 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-05 03:13 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-05 01:29 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-10-07 15:25 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-07 17:03 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-07 22:09 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> - 2025-10-08 18:22 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-08 21:48 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 / Genie - new release antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-08 23:45 +0000
            Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-30 06:54 +0200
              Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-08-31 00:44 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-08-31 08:12 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-31 10:42 +0200
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-01 00:10 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-01 07:30 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-01 16:13 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-01 22:41 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-02 14:23 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-02 23:08 +0000
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2025-09-04 00:54 +0100
                Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-08-31 10:29 +0200
    Re: Algol 68 - formatting with fixed point format Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-08-24 02:47 +0000

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