[M3devel] LONGADDRESS [was: Re: Downsides of Modula-3 ?]

[Daniel Alejandro Benavides D.]

Hi all:
All the contrary Dragisha, do you remember the Micro's era 6809, 4004, etc, so then it became gradually 68000, 8088 - 80186, etc.
So we can see in ARM versions, but now, probably in AMD64, that they are planning the next step, as were the same histories for those days.
We could use it like for porting 32 bit backend to 64 bit painfully less stressful, I mean, even the OS/400 has this feature of 128 pointers to allow updating architecture, without language change.

So I'd guess is rather cross-portability, upwards and that's it. Of course this would require more TYPE declarations and VAR as well (LADR, LVAR), but could be less painful for the ones who want to port to that.
It must be done carefully aggressively because this is a changing world, what can I say?   
Thanks in advance

--- El dom, 22/4/12, Dragiša Durić <dragisha at m3w.org> escribió:

> De: Dragiša Durić <dragisha at m3w.org>
> Asunto: Re: [M3devel] Downsides of Modula-3 ?
> Para: "Daniel Alejandro Benavides D." <dabenavidesd at yahoo.es>
> CC: penn43 at gmx.com, "Mika Nystrom" <mika at async.caltech.edu>, m3devel at elegosoft.com
> Fecha: domingo, 22 de abril, 2012 13:50
> In other words, let's invent another
> non-portability :).
> 
> Pass, please :)
> 
> On Apr 22, 2012, at 7:18 PM, Daniel Alejandro Benavides D.
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi all:
> > I think it would be in I386 (I remember were 16 bits)
> and absolute address location of a Word.T were handled as
> such in I386 process at least that's in my MSJ Vol. 7 No.4,
> because it has Application Address Space and at top System
> Address Space.
> > Similarly in ARMv7the virtual address space is 32-bit,
> but physically extended to be 40-bit.
> > Then the question what it would be like AMD64.
> > Thanks in advance
> > 
> > --- El sáb, 21/4/12, Dragiša Durić <dragisha at m3w.org>
> escribió:
> > 
> >> De: Dragiša Durić <dragisha at m3w.org>
> >> Asunto: Re: [M3devel] Downsides of Modula-3 ?
> >> Para: "Daniel Alejandro Benavides D." <dabenavidesd at yahoo.es>
> >> CC: penn43 at gmx.com,
> "Mika Nystrom" <mika at async.caltech.edu>,
> m3devel at elegosoft.com
> >> Fecha: sábado, 21 de abril, 2012 16:28
> >> What would be LONGADDRESS? Pointer to
> >> a location inside LONGRAM? :)
> >> 
> >> On Apr 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, Daniel Alejandro
> Benavides D.
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Hi all:
> >>> If we accept to exist LONGINT and ADDRESS is a
> Word.T
> >> why we don't have LONGADDRESS? That's you don't
> care if
> >> that's in UNSAFE TYPE, do you?
> >>> Assembly in lining was handled about perfect
> in
> >> Modula-2 for VMS I wonder why DEC didn't provide
> Modula-3
> >> support with that as well.
> >>> Thanks in advance
> >>> 
> >>> --- El vie, 20/4/12, Mika Nystrom <mika at async.caltech.edu>
> >> escribió:
> >>> 
> >>>> De: Mika Nystrom <mika at async.caltech.edu>
> >>>> Asunto: Re: [M3devel] Downsides of Modula-3
> ?
> >>>> Para: penn43 at gmx.com
> >>>> CC: m3devel at elegosoft.com
> >>>> Fecha: viernes, 20 de abril, 2012 15:29
> >>>> 
> >>>> Now that I have the rather unpleasant task
> of
> >> writing C code
> >>>> for a client,
> >>>> I have a few things I "like" about C and
> that I
> >> "miss"
> >>>> somewhat when
> >>>> I write Modula-3.
> >>>> 
> >>>> I find that I sort of like the C
> >> preprocessor.  But
> >>>> maybe it's just the
> >>>> sort of code I'm writing with it... (test
> programs,
> >> which
> >>>> need lots and
> >>>> lots of annotations and instrumentation,
> something
> >> easy to
> >>>> do with cpp).
> >>>> 
> >>>> No alloca....
> >>>> 
> >>>> No varargs...
> >>>> 
> >>>> No real "const" (Java "final"). 
> Sometimes
> >> WITH can do
> >>>> it.
> >>>> 
> >>>> No GO TO.............. can't believe I just
> wrote
> >> that but
> >>>> Modula-3 had
> >>>> as one of its design objectives to be a
> good target
> >> for code
> >>>> generation,
> >>>> and having goto would make that
> easier!  (Look
> >> at the
> >>>> C-Mix partial
> >>>> evaluator for an application.)
> >>>> 
> >>>> A C++ programmer would undoubtedly miss a
> lot of
> >> crazy C++
> >>>> stuff 
> >>>> that lets you do tricky stuff entirely
> without
> >> heap
> >>>> allocation.
> >>>> And operator overloading.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Then there are some annoying
> implementation
> >> limitations:
> >>>> 
> >>>> No EXTENDED floating point in the standard
> >> implementation.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Bugs in the "standard" threading library
> (pthreads
> >>>> based).  Have
> >>>> to use the longjmp hack version.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Dubious "enhancements" relative to the
> Green Book:
> >> LONGINT,
> >>>> WIDECHAR
> >>>> (and a lot of issues with TEXT as a
> result). 
> >> And
> >>>> efficiency problems
> >>>> in the CM3 code in *some cases* (compared
> with the
> >> older SRC
> >>>> M3).
> >>>> 
> >>>> ----
> >>>> 
> >>>> My own evaluation of the above is that the
> things
> >> lacking
> >>>> relative to C
> >>>> are really pretty minor and the language is
> so much
> >> easier
> >>>> to use
> >>>> and better engineered that you almost never
> say to
> >> yourself
> >>>> "oh I wish
> >>>> I could write this procedure in C" (you
> might say
> >> it of one
> >>>> line of code).
> >>>> 
> >>>> The implementation issues are things that
> could
> >> "easily" be
> >>>> fixed by
> >>>> someone who had the time..
> >>>> 
> >>>> Oh regarding efficiency problems: I still
> find that
> >> CM3 with
> >>>> optimization
> >>>> turned on produces code that runs faster
> and with a
> >> far
> >>>> smaller memory
> >>>> footprint than code doing the same thing in
> Java,
> >> most of
> >>>> the time.
> >>>> That's when you try to do as close to an
> >> apples-to-apples
> >>>> comparison
> >>>> as possible.  If you take into account
> the
> >> fact that in
> >>>> Modula-3 you can
> >>>> allocate structured memory in "batches"
> (called
> >> "arrays"!)
> >>>> the difference
> >>>> is even bigger.  Modula-3 also links
> far
> >> easier with C
> >>>> and Fortran than
> >>>> Java does.
> >>>> 
> >>>>    Mika
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> penn43 at gmx.com
> >>>> writes:
> >>>>> An object appraisal must take into
> account the
> >> problems
> >>>> too. So I am asking yo
> >>>>> u, could you please mention any
> downsides of
> >> using
> >>>> Modula-3, in your experienc
> >>>>> e?
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Of course, the non-existent language
> community
> >> has
> >>>> already been mentioned as a
> >>>>> major downside. 
> >>>>> And the lack of documentation.
> >>>>> What about other issues, such as
> compiler
> >> efficiency? Or
> >>>> interaction with fore
> >>>>> ign libraries?
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Thanks
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Marresh
> >>>> 
> >> 
> >> 
> 
>