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Date:	Sat, 14 Feb 2004 08:11:26 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-programming@scoug.com" > scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: PL/I most important statement (was: call(TZ) ? - PL/I)

Content Type: text/plain

"...I prefer to let the compiler do it. Why create work for
yourself? Lynn, wasn't your Warpicity project laced with the
concept of "let the compiler do it"?"

Let people do what software cannot and software what
people need not. You created work for yourself by using a
begin-block, requiring both a begin and an end statement.
You could have achieved both with an allocate statement,
letting the system deallocate on procedure end. As an
allocate explicitly says "what" you want to occur as opposed
to the implicit (or silent) allocations of using a begin block, I
would suggest it provides less confusion for the casual reader.

In point of fact the initial attribute applies to both static and
automatic storage variables. The initial value itself is applied
to a static variable during compile time while that of an
automatic variable occurs at runtime on entry to a procedure.
That PL/I assigns a default value of 'automatic' to a variable
instead of 'static' is a hangover from ALGOL.

I think Bob is probably still scratching his head wondering how
he reinforced your view. If you want to dynamically
allocate storage for a variable, then give it the 'controlled' or
'based' storage attribute and use an 'allocate variable;'
statement. The fact that you can achieve something similar
with a variable with an 'automatic' storage attribute in a
begin-block has nothing to do with the two purposes the
language authors had in its implementation.

Of course, you are welcome to make your point by using your
coding preference to show us how it would work in solving
the peg solitaire problem as others in our group have done.

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