There is a "Modular C" (onto a tangent...)

[cfv at packet.UUCP]

I knew that 'Finite State Diagrams of ...' was written by Knuth.  If it was
written  as  a joke, it passed by me completely, as the tone of the article
was VERY serious.  I picked it out of many possible articles I  could  have
lambasted simply because it was SO far gone from any base of reality.

The whole problem with SIG{Plan,Ops,Sac,etc} is that  rather  than  sending
out  information  that is potentially relevant or useful (and in some cases
accurate) they are turned into the last chance for the "Publish or  Perish"
groups  because  they  are  not refereed.  I will agree that there are some
VERY good articles in the publications.  I will also state that  there  are
MANY  VERY  bad,  misleading,  poorly  written,  obscure, useless or simply
incorrect articles.  At one point in Sigplan  something  like  30%  of  the
publication  was  being used to correct mistakes in previous issues (mostly
in Ada articles that have sinced moved to AdaTec).  Errors  in  Ada  are  a
special  case  since it is hard to hit a moving target but at the same time
if someone bothered to work with the authors a little bit  a  lot  of  this
could be reduced.

Finally, I should point out that I am 1) not  a  compiler  writer,  and  2)
don't  want  to  be a compiler writer.  What I AM interested in is language
design and how  language  design  and  compilers  interact  (and  sometimes
interfere)  with  the  programming  process.  For  somebody  who is writing
compilers for a living perhaps SIGPlan is a more  appropriate  publication,
but for me most of it is really worthless.

(Trying to make this my last flame, honest!)
-- 
>From the dungeons of the Warlock:
					      Chuck Von Rospach
					      ucbvax!amd70!packet!cfv
					      (chuqui at mit-mc)  <- obsolete!