Re: Programming language and IDE design

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From	glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: Programming language and IDE design
Date	Fri, 8 Nov 2013 05:21:24 +0000 (UTC)
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Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk> wrote:
> BartC <bc@freeuk.com> makes the point that the redundancy
> provided by enforced consistency between grouping and indentation
> will catch typos which would otherwise cause bugs in the code.

(big snip)
> This point raises some important issues about languages and compilers:

(snip)
> (2) Absolutely no behaviour should be "implementation dependent"
> or "undefined". Every syntactically valid program should have
> a single semantically valid meaning (even if that meaning
> is "halt with an error message").

Much "implementation dependence" comes from dependence on the host
processor.  Maybe sometimes too much, but it is nice to be able to use
the new features of newer processors.

Many early machines were sign magnitude, but most now use twos
complement, which mostly is an advantage.

Different word sizes are also a common dependence, with 36 bit words
and 6-bit characters common on the early scientific machines.

-- glen

Thread

Programming language and IDE design Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk> - 2013-10-17 11:06 +0100
  Re: Programming language and IDE design "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-10-19 22:05 +0100
    Re: Programming language and IDE design Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk> - 2013-11-07 19:40 +0000
      Re: Programming language and IDE design glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-11-08 05:21 +0000
      Re: Programming language and IDE design Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2013-11-08 06:45 +0100
      Re: Programming language and IDE design George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2013-11-08 16:04 -0500
      Re: Programming language and IDE design "Jonathan Thornburg" <jthorn@astro.indiana.edu> - 2013-11-10 04:41 +0000
  Re: Programming language and IDE design Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2013-10-20 03:22 +0200
  Re: Programming language and IDE design Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-10-20 14:03 -0700
    Re: Programming language and IDE design Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-10-21 14:44 -0700
  Re: Programming language and IDE design George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2013-10-22 16:17 -0400
    Re: Programming language and IDE design Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2013-10-23 03:40 +0200
    Re: Programming language and IDE design wclodius@earthlink.net (William Clodius) - 2013-10-22 19:56 -0600
    Re: Programming language and IDE design "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-10-23 19:09 +0100
      Re: Comments, was Programming language and IDE design "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-08-01 13:15 -0400
    Re: Programming language and IDE design Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2013-10-24 10:55 -0400
      Re: Programming language and IDE design George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2013-10-24 19:57 -0400

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