Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!tness7!killer!pollux!dalsqnt!uunet!nuchat!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Is &a[NTHINGS] legal Message-ID: <850@.UUCP> Date: 2 Jun 88 15:24:00 GMT References: <12074@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <10716@steinmetz.ge.com> <164@atpal.UUCP> Organization: SCADA Lines: 28 In article <164@atpal.UUCP>, tneff@atpal.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes: > In article <778@.UUCP> peter@ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > >On the other hand I very much suspect that any useful 'C' compiler on the > >386 will blow off that segment stuff and just stick everything in one big > >segment... > Any *truly* useful 'C' compiler on the 386 will let the programmer > choose his own segmentation model like a big boy. Why is this any more important than (say) allowing people to choose which register to use for subroutine linkage on the PDP-11 or 68000? This is something that's much more important (at least if you want your 'C' to interface with other PDP-11 languages). > Accessing big > segments is a sine qua non, but forcibly limiting people to the "flat" > model would be fatal in the marketplace. Why? What reason could you possibly have, within the lifespan of the 80386, for using anything but a flat model in 'C'? 'C' doesn't apply very well to intel segments in the first place (if you don't believe me, explain "memory models": there are languages that handle segments much more gracefully (PL/M-86, for example), but 'C' falls flat on its face), and with 32 bits of address space per segment the need for even dealing with them goes away. -- -- Peter da Silva, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. -- Phone: 713-274-5180. Remote UUCP: uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter.