noalias comments to X3J11

[Randell E. Jesup]

In article <1988Mar25.172355.348 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>>`Volatile,' in particular, is a frill for esoteric applications...
>
>Interrupt routines are almost by definition esoteric, not to mention highly
>machine-specific.  Only on PCs do users commonly write their own interrupt
>routines; in more modern environments [MSDOS is a Neanderthal operating
>system, its only saving grace being some of the nifty applications that run
>on it] such things generally are confined to the bowels of the operating
>system, where they belong.

	And would you mandate that C never be used for writing operating
systems (one of it's original purposes)?  What about user programs that deal
with custom or non-standard hardware (like lab stuff)?  Or things like
the Amiga, where you can have your message ports handled by software interrupts
if you prefer them to signals.
	'Volatile' is extremely important for dealing with real-world
hardware.  The contortions to work without it in these cases are horrible,
while it is a relatively easy thing to deal with if you don't need it (ignore
it).  The fact that things that need volatile probably won't be portable
across all machines that have C compilers is a non-issue.

>"Noalias must go.  This is           |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>non-negotiable."  --DMR              | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Now that we can agree on!

     //	Randell Jesup			      Lunge Software Development
    //	Dedicated Amiga Programmer            13 Frear Ave, Troy, NY 12180
 \\//	beowulf!lunge!jesup at steinmetz.UUCP    (518) 272-2942
  \/    (uunet!steinmetz!beowulf!lunge!jesup) BIX: rjesup

(-: The Few, The Proud, The Architects of the RPM40 40MIPS CMOS Micro :-)