Scope and extent of NCEG proposals

[John Kwan]

> There are certainly many features that "might be nice to have", such as
> variable-sized arrays inside structures, generic functions, operators
> for IEEE support, precision specification for integers and floating
> point numbers, vector operations, etc.
>
> But such features are not essential for numerical programming (FORTRAN
> 77 lacks most of them), and their implications for the programming
> language and their interaction are poorly understood. By wasting so
> much time on their discussion, getting the essential problems of C
> fixed seems to get delayed more and more.
>

  I agree completely.

> The most important issues that I see with C for numerical programming
> are variable-sized multidimensional arrays and a "restricted pointer"
> declaration.

  To these, I would add 64-bit integers. It is only a matter of time that
  many manufacturers will have a 64-bit machine.

  John W. Kwan
  Calif. Language Lab
  Hewlett-Packard Co.