Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: andyr@wizzy.com (Andy Rabagliati)
Subject: OCCAM3 (was :- Revision of occam 2 Reference Manual)
Organization: W.Z.I.
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 23:53:14 GMT
Message-ID: <Cu36Cq.Mwt@wizzy.com>

>peter@bustard.inmos.co.uk (Peter Hassall) writes:

>> INMOS is considering a revision of the occam 2 Reference Manual in the
>> near future and would appreciate any comments on the current edition.

Andres Kruse (NIKHEF),1c/137,2909 <A.Kruse@nikhef.nl> wrote:

>What about a questionaire to OCCAM2 users about what they would like
>to have implemented in new OCCAM versions ? 

This has little relevance to documenting OCCAM2.

That said,

>I guess many people will agree that:
>
>- structures are a MUST !

But they are already in OCCAM3.

>- pointers should be there as well.
>- 'PAR FROM something FOR something' where 'something' are variables
>  which can change at run-time.

These are not in OCCAM2 for a reason. Not being familiar with progress
on OCCAM3, I do not know wether they are in OCCAM3.

However, the reasons that they are not in OCCAM2 could keep them out of
OCCAM3 too.

Those reasons are :-

* Inability to write a Usage Checker

* Indeterminate memory requirements.

>- RETURN from a PROC or FUNCTION... (dunno how to handle RETURNs in
>  a PAR.. maybe the compiler could restrict the use of RETURNs to
>  PROCs which don't have PARs..)

I am not sure what you mean here. If you mean RETURN from the middle of
a function, then there is no functionality added to the language, just
confusion.

>Who would be the right person to ask about something like that ?

Well, how about this newsgroup .. [ Spock, set shields to medium bake ]

You can download the current spec of OCCAM3 from unix.hensa.ac.uk.
As you can tell, I have not.

If you want to write in C, there is always the C compiler. More effort
is put into the Inmos C compiler than the OCCAM compiler, so you are
still getting state-of-the-art.

Cheers,     Andy.

--
The birds have vanished into the sky,	     Andy Rabagliati  andyr@wizzy.com 
   and now the last cloud drains away.			    W.Z.I. Consulting
      We sit together, the mountain and me,		      +1.719.635.6099
         until only the mountain remains.   -- Li Po (701-762)

