ANSI C suggestions

[Jon Corbet]

As long as we are discussing improvements to the language, I would
like to suggest a couple:

(1)	Get rid of that requirement that all floating point arithmetic
	be done in floating point.  Here at NCAR, we have applications
	that need to quickly crunch a few megabytes of data and get it
	to the display, while the scientist is sitting there twiddling
	his thumbs and wondering if the programmers should get raises
	after all.  32 bits is plenty of precision for our calculations,
	and the double precision slows things down enough that our
	math intensive routines are still written in (UGH!) FORTRAN.
	This is a drag, since I really campaigned hard for a C compiler,
	and I still have to use FORTRAN.  I don't care if I have to
	set a compiler flag or whatever, as long as I can use single
	precision arithmetic.

(2)	The DEC C compiler allows a "readonly" designation on global
	variables.  This is handy to insure that one does not overwrite
	static lookup tables and such.  VAX type machines can easily
	implement readonly variables.  I suggest that readonly should
	be part of the language in much the same way as register 
	variables -- i.e. the compiler does not have to implement things
	that way if it is in a bad mood or the machine does not
	support it.

--
Jonathan Corbet
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Field Observing Facility
{hplabs|seismo}!hao!boulder!jon