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- Path: news.cc.uic.edu!icarus!dhanle2
- From: dhanle2@icarus.cc.uic.edu (David James Hanley)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.java,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk
- Subject: Re: Will Java kill C++?
- Followup-To: comp.lang.java,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk
- Date: 15 Apr 1996 15:45:43 GMT
- Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
- Message-ID: <4ktqv7$1ueu@piglet.cc.uic.edu>
- References: <4kn3c4$1ggc@piglet.cc.uic.edu> <Dpt0FD.Et4@research.att.com> <4ks0c8$jte@piglet.cc.uic.edu> <DpvsE5.2HC@research.att.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: icarus.cc.uic.edu
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-
- Andrew Koenig (ark@research.att.com) wrote:
- : In article <4ks0c8$jte@piglet.cc.uic.edu> dhanle2@icarus.cc.uic.edu (David James Hanley) writes:
-
- : > No, actually, when I was trimming the post, I accidentally
- : > clipped off your name, and made a typo when I typed it back in.
- : > I realize that mistyping your name is a mortal sin to the god of c++,
- : > even if he projects his like for flaming strangers onto others.
-
- : If you had retracted your (claimed) inadvertent insult,
- : I would have believed you.
-
- Oh darn, my life is over. I misspelled someone's name. Will
- I ever live it down?
-
- : > : Correct about what? That having a name-mangling standard for C++
- : > : would make C++ libraries easier to handle. Sorry, but he's wrong,
- : > : and so are you.
-
- : In order for a standard to have any meaning at all, that standard has
- : to specify the behavior of something. Moreover, any standard has to
- : do so in a way that makes it possible to determine whether that
- : something meets the requirements of the standard or not.
-
- Sure. I gues this is so hard that standards are never
- made, eh?
-
- : Now, suppose a name-mangling standard existed. What would it
- : specify the behavior of? Linkers? What is a linker? What if I
- : give you a C++ implementation that has no linker at all? Would you
- : claim that such an implementation cannot be standard conforming
- : because it does not have mangled names for you to inspect? There
- : is no such requirement on C implementations; why should there be
- : such a requirement on C++ implementations?
-
- Again, so all those libraries I link with my C code must
- be figments of my imagination. It would be just too hard to
- agree on a standard implementation.
-
- : Or what if I write a linker that does not use name mangling at
- : all, but instead stores types in its symbol table? Would you
- : reject such a linker because it does not mangle names properly?
-
- Agast! That couldn't possibly be part of the standard!
-
- : Of, for a third example, consider a compiler and linker that does
- : follow the hypothetical name-mangling standard, but gives its users
- : no way of determining what names it actually uses? Does such a
- : compiler/linker pair conform? How can you tell? How can you test
- : conformance?
-
- I may be really stupid, but I don't understand at all what you
- mean here. Wouldn't the names it uses be determined by the name mangling
- standard?
-
- : These are all questions that you must answer before you can even think
- : about what a name-mangling standard might mean.
-
- : > No, and again, no one said it did. But a lot of work has been
- : > done to allow link-compatibility within C libraries. It seems foolish
- : > to throw this all away.
-
- : Indeed. But having a name-mangling standard would not affect this.
-
- Yes it would. it wou;dn't clear up every concievable possible
- theoretical problem, but it would be another big problem out of the
- way of simpl distribution of libraries, object files, etc.
-
- --
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- David Hanley, |______ Computer Science graduate student.
- dhanley@lac.eecs.uic.edu |\ ___/__ Martial Artist. Biker. Chess Freak
- www_lac.eecs.uic.edu/~dhanley/| \\ / / Libertarian. Atheist. Bisexual.
- My employer barely KNOWS me. | \/BI/ Aspiring novelist.Joyce Kafka Neitzchie
- -----------------------------------\/-----------------------------------------
- Hemlock? I never touch the stuff!
-