billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 ) (12/16/89)
From Judy.Bamberger@sei.cmu.edu: > -- A standard preprocessor would have the advantage of being standardized, > -- but would suffer the disadvantage that compiler optimizations are not > -- possible where the compiler has no knowledge of high-level semantics, > -- which is a major reason not to simply codify the preprocessing practice. > % With a few substitions and a bit o' poetic license, the above could be % rephrased as: % % A standard LANGUAGE would have the advantage of being standardized, % but would suffer the disadvantage that APPLICATION-SPECIFIC % IDIOMS are not possible where the LANGUAGE has no knowledge of % APPLICATION-level semantics, which is a major reason not to simply % codify the PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. The analogy is fundamentally flawed; while the first passage notes problems with one strategy and suggests another, the second states in essence that since a standardized computer programming language is more rigorous than a human language, computer programming languages should not be standardized, which of course does not follow. Perhaps the spiked eggnog is being passed around a bit too early... Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu