xerox 19771027 Mesa Language Working Group Minutes free download

File name 19771027_Mesa_Language_Working_Group_Minutes.pdf

XEROX BUSINESS SYSTEMS System Development Division October 27, 1977 To: Distribution From: Dick Sweet Subject: Mesa Language Working Group minutes The Language Working Group met on 25 October, 1977. The first item considered was an ordering of priorities for languages changes for Mesa 4. First Priority Group Open Procedures Monitors Long and Based Pointers String Constants XEROX SDD ARCHIVES Second Priority Group I have read and understood Sequences Pages _________ To --------- Allocation Reviewer Da te _ _ __ Mutable variant records Pointer Arithmetic # of Pages___Ref .7'1 (jV -;;, (. ~D "'1~1 Default Parameters and Fields Ports Field Descriptors Included Identifiers Long Integers, Real Third Priority Group Machine Dependent Records Main body as a Procedure Painted Integers Declaration Syntax (anywhere in body, after BEGIN, etc.) Fourth Priority Group LOOP statement Coerce clause It was decided that someone (Ed, John, and Dick?) should write a proposal for sequences. allocation, mutable, pointer arithmetic, and string constants, which are thought to be interconnected. The previous proposals for long pointers and based pointers should be dusted off and recirculated. A discussion of Open Procedures followed, with the following points made: Some reorgainzation of the Symbol Table will obviously have to be made. Where should a procedure be specified as open? At the declaration, it is declared as potentially inline, along with the default way of calling. A call can specify a means of calling other than the default. 2 What does it mean to EXPORT an open coded procedure? One would have to have a body for the procedure and EXPORT a closed instance. As I recall, the automatic generation of a body was not a popular idea. What about an open coded procedure whose body is in a DEFINITIONS module when someone wants to call it in a closed manner? There should be some way for an implementer module to say "Put the code here." It was noted that the debugger's fine grain table is not well suited to setting breaks inside an open coded instance. Likewise, if there are copies of parameters and/or local variables of the open coded procedure, the debugger may ha