From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] pascal, TeX From: forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="upas-oesiyosuagiofxiicrykrtkfhe" Message-Id: <20011213190251.3117F199BB@mail.cse.psu.edu> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 19:02:45 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 35ccad32-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --upas-oesiyosuagiofxiicrykrtkfhe Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i suspect that's because the Pascal language took the novel approach of providing neither guaranteed garbage collection nor a portable operator to free memory without it. there were several platform-specific methods, including stack like heap allocation (which i think was used by one compiler). `dispose' ended up in the standard (but did not preclude implementing garbage collection). --upas-oesiyosuagiofxiicrykrtkfhe Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: <9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu> Received: from punt-2.mail.demon.net by mailstore for forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk id 1008265976:20:03271:6; Thu, 13 Dec 2001 17:52:56 GMT Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.4.6]) by punt-2.mail.demon.net id aa2125816; 13 Dec 2001 17:52 GMT Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu (psuvax1.cse.psu.edu [130.203.4.6]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id E87D819A2C; Thu, 13 Dec 2001 12:52:07 -0500 (EST) Delivered-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Received: from plan9.cs.bell-labs.com (plan9.bell-labs.com [204.178.31.2]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with SMTP id 1681519A00 for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Thu, 13 Dec 2001 12:51:21 -0500 (EST) Received: from HWTPC ([135.104.53.98]) by plan9; Thu Dec 13 12:51:14 EST 2001 To: "erik quanstrom" , <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: [9fans] pascal, TeX Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2462.0000 In-Reply-To: <20011213173843.5E5683FE56@quanstro.net> Importance: Normal Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu X-BeenThere: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.7 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu List-Help: List-Id: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu> List-Archive: Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 12:51:37 -0500 Knuth didn't trust Pascal memory management for some reason, so he avoided using records and "new". He did most data structures in huge arrays of integers with punny macros to fake up data structures inside them. It was Pascal with Fortran for data structuring... > knuth lives on his own planet. i believe it's called > "the art of computer programming." ;-) > also, due TeX's pascal heratage, it has an ungodly number > of compiled-in limits. --upas-oesiyosuagiofxiicrykrtkfhe--