I think every Fortran programmer has a version of that story. Mine involved the number 3.
-rob On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 8:01 AM Michael Jones <michael.jo...@gmail.com> wrote: > My hardest-to-debug ever bug was because of this. > > Because FORTRAN is pass by reference, the compiler must do something > special for the four in "SQRT(4.0)" -- and the PDP-10 (TOPS-10) FORTRAN > compiler used a global literal table for this. I had a function that > modified an argument, erroneously passed a literal number in, the compiler > housed the number (may have been a 2) in the the gkobal table, and after > that, all the "2" arguments in my program were invisibly changed. > > I was 16 or 17, was an explorer scout at BTL, and was quick to embrace 6th > edition UNIX and ed over TOPS-10 and TECO (ignoring the brilliantly named > SOS, "son of stopgap") > > On Sun, Jan 6, 2019 at 12:15 PM Rob Pike <r...@golang.org> wrote: > >> Fortran depends heavily on pointers for its semantics: It is a call by >> reference language. You just don't see them explicit in the language and >> you have no control over whether an argument will be modified by a >> procedure. >> >> -rob >> >> >> On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 5:13 AM Victor Giordano <vitucho3...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> i guess that a good question to start is there is a language that >>> doesn't relays on pointer. Fortran as someone says below, may be a good >>> example how things get done using values only. I programmed in COBOL in the >>> universitiy and don't recall to use pointers. There aren't necessary at >>> all, nevertheless they provide inderection or referrals that allow to >>> express things more efficiently in certain scenarios. You could write an >>> entire program witout using pointers,i guess, that call is in the cook >>> chief!. >>> Nice topic to talk. >>> >>> >>> El martes, 1 de enero de 2019, 8:34:34 (UTC-3), 伊藤和也 escribió: >>>> >>>> What are the reasonable reasons to use pointers? Are pointers neseccary? >>>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "golang-nuts" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "golang-nuts" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > -- > > *Michael T. jonesmichael.jo...@gmail.com <michael.jo...@gmail.com>* > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
