Kahn.PA%XEROX@sri-unix.UUCP (08/04/84)
While I found Cohen's code hard to read it did seem to have the advantages he claims and seems to work. It is hairy and I would like to see some English describing how it works. I should point out that "Kahn's algorithm" was jointly developed by Lars -Henrik Eriksson and Manny Rayner and myself. Its true that in general the chain of changes needs to be copied but in what we think is the most common use of arrays (linear chains of updates) then this chain to be copied is empty. It seems that an update in Cohen's scheme costs about 8 words vs. 3 or 4 for us but I don't think this is so important. I'm looking forward to seeing a clear description of Cohen's algorithm since it seems so promising. -- Ken Kahn