Wierd code

[Henry Spencer]

> We have had some experience with a P695 (MUFOM) linker:
> ...
> 	2) It is very inefficient, and not particularly the programs fault.
> ...  Point (2) arises because the standard itself is
> inefficient.  For example, to produce a namelist (i.e., 'nm(1)'), a
> program has to read and examine the *entire file* - 40% of the file can
> be skipped over, 3 to 100 bytes at a time...
> These examples of course could be fixed up, of course, by conventionally
> putting this information near the front of the file in comments.
> *However*, it is only a convention and will not work since it is not
> standard.

That doesn't follow.  A P695 linker ought to be able to handle the full
standard, but that does *not* imply that it must be equally (in)efficient
for all possible inputs.  There is nothing wrong with saying "if you want
it to run fast, observe the following conventions and restrictions...".	
(I agree that it would be nice if said conventions were part of the standard,
which would greatly increase the chances that randomly-chosen P695 software
would observe them, but it's not vital.)
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry