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Thank you, Shreevatsa — very interesting and informative. I confess
I remain very sceptical about pointer arithmetic, no matter how
implemented : it seems to me that if one explicitly uses pointer
arithmetic, rather than relying on the compiler to handle abstract
data structures, one is virtually working at the level of machine
code / assembler. <br>
<br>
Looking at Don's <i>Fundamental Algorithms </i>(1968/9), where he
introduces MIX, it is obvious that at that time he was thinking very
much in terms of assembly-level programming, yet
Dijkstra's/Dahl's/Hoare's <i>Structured Programming</i>, written
only 3–4 years later, focusses exclusively on algorithms expressed
entirely in an Algol-like notation. They were contemporaries, they
were peers, they were intellectual equals, yet they chose two very
different approaches. TeX, it is generally acknowledged, is not the
easiest program to modify, even though its documentation (through
the medium of WEB) is exemplary. Had TeX been written by Messrs
Dijkstra/Dahl/Hoar, would it have been easier to extend, I am forced
to wonder ...<br>
<br>
<i>Philip Taylor</i><br>
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