Re: PATCH: `__norestrict' type qualifier

[Toon Moene <toon at moene dot indiv dot nluug dot nl>]

Linus Torvalds wrote:

> I _have_ actually taken it up on comp.std.c as an extension, and it wasn't
> dismissed out of hand. Some people didn't like it, but others liked it a
> lot. Many suggested that the right way to introduce a new feature was to
> have a compiler that implemented the feature first (a kind of catch-22
> situation, as one of the arguments on the egcs list _against_ the feature
> was that it wasn't approved by the std.c crowd).

Because I made this suggestion at the time, perhaps it's appropriate for
me to chime in.  I thought you would be discussing your proposal _of
that time_ on comp.std.c, but apparently you took the opportunity of
switching audiences as a chance of reformulating your proposal in the
form of the "norestrict" qualifier to pointers.  That's fine with me.

As far as I have been able to determine ("following" the discussion on
DejaNews - I do not read comp.std.c) the proposal was broadly "accepted"
in the sense that no-one could really shoot a hole in it.

Perhaps I should have warned you for the catch-22 ("You implement that
first so that we can see if it makes sense").  This is quite normal in
language development; a feature might look sooo right on paper, but if
it is impossible to implement it in a real, existing compiler, there
might still be something wrong with it.

Cheers,

-- 
Toon Moene (toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
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