Optimization and language level

[jbn at wdl1.UUCP]

     Exactly right.  The problem is language design.  I have written a
longish paper on this subject as it relates to C, and will send it on
to anyone interested.  (Much of it is a formal treatment of C arithmetic
and how it could be defined in a portable way).
     It is possible to design a language in which the semantics are
totally nailed down, but it is unusual to do so.  Such a language is
completely portable.  The UCSD P-system P-code can be thought of as
such a language.  But no programming language defined to date and widely
used meets this criterion; even Ada is defined sloppily in places.

					John Nagle