Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Responding to what you perceive as an ad hominem attack with an ad hominem attack. How the mighty (arrogant) have fallen On May 17, 2005, at 10:14 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well it's nice to see that when you are wrong, instead of discussing the logic of the problem you resort to slanderous name-calling, how pleasant. Perhaps you did learn something from your daughter. Will --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Gyle, 64KB? ROTFLMAO! The first Microdata machine I worked on had 16KB, and ran a medical billing service bureau. It had 1 50MB disk drive and ran as slow as molasses. I ran into the same machine many years later in a tech college museum. I verified the serial number to be sure. Ouch, the bones are feeling old today. ;^) Regards, Charlie Noah [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes: Charles Stevenson goes on: [snipping the bit about tolerance] Do you know why dimensioned arrays were first limited to only 1 or 2 dimensions in Pick or Info-Basic? There was probably some concern about memory consumption way back when MD and Pick ran with only 64KB of core. I think it was just simpler for the designers to set a low limit. It looks like the subsequent designers never anticipated adding more dimensions, rather they focused on backward compatibility (which in this case has multiple interpretations). [snip] Best regards, Gyle --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Wow, Noah! - you MUST be old! On Wed, 2005-05-18 at 06:25 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gyle, 64KB? ROTFLMAO! The first Microdata machine I worked on had 16KB, and ran a medical billing service bureau. It had 1 50MB disk drive and ran as slow as molasses. I ran into the same machine many years later in a tech college museum. I verified the serial number to be sure. Ouch, the bones are feeling old today. ;^) Regards, Charlie Noah - GWK BEPERK/LIMITED (REG: 1997/022252/06) POSBUS 47 PO BOX 8730 DOUGLAS Direkteure/Directors: NB Jacobs, FJ Lawrence, J v/d S Botes, JH Coetzee, JGD Smit, JF Jacobs, AO M|ller, JW Smit, WG M|lke, JG Stander, JH van Dyk(MD/BD), JG Jacobs, A M|ller, M van Zyl, Sekr/Secr: HA Nolte. Hierdie e-pos is onderworpe aan `n vrywaring beskikbaar by: http://www.gwk.co.za/DisclaimerVrywaring.asp This e-mail is subjected to the disclaimer that can be viewed at: http://www.gwk.co.za/DisclaimerVrywaring.asp --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Nah. My first Microdata only had 10 mb. The 50s came out 1-2 years later. Roger Schalk van Zyl wrote: Wow, Noah! - you MUST be old! On Wed, 2005-05-18 at 06:25 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gyle, 64KB? ROTFLMAO! The first Microdata machine I worked on had 16KB, and ran a medical billing service bureau. It had 1 50MB disk drive and ran as slow as molasses. I ran into the same machine many years later in a tech college museum. I verified the serial number to be sure. Ouch, the bones are feeling old today. ;^) Regards, Charlie Noah --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Oh dear, I feel the flood gates opening... Please resist. grin Brian Binary? Luxury. We couldn't afford ones AND zeros. Gyle, 64KB? ROTFLMAO! The first Microdata machine I worked on had 16KB, and ran a medical billing service bureau. It had 1 50MB disk drive and ran as slow as molasses. I ran into the same machine many years later in a tech college museum. I verified the serial number to be sure. Ouch, the bones are feeling old today. ;^) Regards, Charlie Noah --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
All, Please move the entire, My system was smaller than your system contest to U2-Community. You may subscribe to U2-Community, send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]. Place the following line by itself in the body of the mail: subscribe u2-community More info: http://u2ug.org/index.php?module=ContentExpressfunc=displaybtitle=CEmid=ceid=12 - Charles Barouch, Moderator Brian Leach wrote: Oh dear, I feel the flood gates opening... Please resist. grin --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
In a message dated 5/18/2005 3:42:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 64KB? ROTFLMAO! The first Microdata machine I worked on had 16KB, and ran a medical billing service bureau. It had 1 50MB disk drive and ran as slow as molasses. I ran into the same machine many years later in a tech college museum. I verified the serial number to be sure. Ouch, the bones are feeling old today. ;^) You remember the serial number many years later of a machine you had worked on? You have a gift that *few* would envy (big grin). But seriously, my first Microdata has 100Meg of disk and when we backed that baby up it took 6 hours of 9-track tape to do it. Will Johnson --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
You implied that the difference isn't what it used to be. This is not true. It's only not what it used to be in certain situations. In other situations, it is exactly what it used to be. Sigh. I have a six year old girl who hates it when anyone else is right about anything. I was showing her how to unlock the garage door last week, and she said, that's not how you do it. Then she jiggled the key then did exactly what I had showed her. I have hope that she'll learn as she grows up. Good luck, Will. I'm going back to my practice of ignoring you again. I have enough six-year olds in my life at the moment. I have hope that I'll learn to stick to that as I grow up. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Well it's nice to see that when you are wrong, instead of discussing the logic of the problem you resort to slanderous name-calling, how pleasant. Perhaps you did learn something from your daughter. Will In a message dated 5/17/2005 6:10:31 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have a six year old girl who hates it when anyone else is right about anything. I was showing her how to unlock the garage door last week, and she said, that's not how you do it. Then she jiggled the key then did exactly what I had showed her. I have hope that she'll learn as she grows up. Good luck, Will. I'm going back to my practice of ignoring you again. I have enough six-year olds in my life at the moment. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
In a message dated 5/14/2005 12:32:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But simply saying that it makes no difference in any case is not true. Re-read my post. Did I say that it makes no difference? I believe the upshot was, bowing to Yogi Berra on his 80th, that the difference ain't what it used to be. You implied that the difference isn't what it used to be. This is not true. It's only not what it used to be in certain situations. In other situations, it is exactly what it used to be. Some list/record sets are often processed in READNEXT sequential fashion. And some are very very rarely processed that way. It's better to teach a man to fish and that's what this thread is about. A last touched pointer is only useful if you are frequently needing that sort of reference. However there are some applications that never benefit from it. Will Johnson --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Charles Stevenson wrote on May 14, 2005 8:24 AM: Do you know why dimensioned arrays were first limited to only 1 or 2 dimensions in Pick or Info-Basic? I started my computing life with BASIC on a PDP-11/03 and FORTRAN on a CDC Cyber 173 system. I believe the dimension limit was there to avoid complicated memory addressing. Dimensioned arrays were stored in consecutive memory. DIM X(10,10) reserved 121 spaces (0-based indexing was the default). In order to access X(5,7), you would take the base address of X and add 7*11+5 to get the correct memory address. This naturally expands when you increase dimensions. For example, DIM Y(10,10,10) for item Y(3,5,4) would calculate (4*11+5)*11+3 as the offset. Extending this to more dimensions is left as an exercise for the reader :- (I knew there was a reason they made us learn assembly language...) --Tom Pellitieri Century Equipment --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Now that's an insightful historical perspective: From: Mark Johnson Being from the late 70's MCD crowd . . . I've concluded that people didn't like typing EXTRACT with its required but useless trailing parameters. Thus constantly typing PRINT EXTRACT(CUST.REC,1,0,0)L#20: :EXTRACT(CUST.REC,2,0,0)L#20 got to be a real pain in the neck. And if a field was to be accumulated, it looked like this: CUST.REC=REPLACE(CUST.REC,5,0,0,EXTRACT(CUST.REC,5,0,0)+INV.AMT) . . .This was all before the characters for dynamic array . . . So the dimensioned arrays actually enhanced readability maintainability before the -syntax was invented. . . . IMHO (here come the flames) . . . (changing from insightful to inciteful, eh?) Thanks Mark, cds --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Being from the late 70's MCD crowd, I recall learning EXTRACT, INSERT,
DELETE and REPLACE functions for dynamic arrays. The fact that READ
co-existed with MATREAD begs some analysis on why there would be 2 methods
to get data from a data file.
In my travels through thousands of lines of code from that Jurrasic Pick
era, I've concluded that people didn't like typing EXTRACT with its required
but useless trailing parameters. Thus constantly typing
PRINT EXTRACT(CUST.REC,1,0,0)L#20: :EXTRACT(CUST.REC,2,0,0)L#20
got to be a real pain in the neck. And if a field was to be accumulated, it
looked like this:
CUST.REC=REPLACE(CUST.REC,5,0,0,EXTRACT(CUST.REC,5,0,0)+INV.AMT)
My fingers hurt just typing this example. Imagine programming this way.
This was all before the characters for dynamic array extraction and the
semi-colon to eliminate the trailing useless zeros. I actually had a utility
that replaced the REPLACEs and other old-school expressions with their
counterparts when working on this older code.
So along comes REC(100) and PRINT REC(1)L#20: :REC(2)L#20 which saved
endless blisters. But you still had to use EXTRACT to get at the
multi-values of a field, Thus you had:
PRINT EXTRACT(REC(5),1,MV,0)
with the hope that the person put the MV expression in the proper slot. This
brought about some creative alternatives to EXTRACT, the most prevelant was
FIELD. Thus you had
VM=CHAR(253)
PRINT FIELD(REC(5),VM,MV)
which was a slight improvement over EXTRACT.
Putting data back was another expression of rampant creativity. I've seen
code that READs in a REC and parses it to an ARRAY() to print the elements
simply. Was MATREAD not available at the same time as READ. I've also seen
code with 20-30 consecutive READV's to put the data in program-level
variables and then only WRITEV the changes.
But my favorite idiotic method had to be this line building an order record:
WRITE CUSTNO:AM:ORD.DATE:AM:PRODS:AM:QTYS:STR(AM,15):SALESMAN ON F.ORDER,
ORN
IMHO (here come the flames) I've concluded that the only benefit of using
REC(100) versus REC is if your system is based on using EQUATES to assign
the elements of REC(1-100) to program-level variable names, ie the alias
purpose of EQUATE. If these EQUATEs are part of an application-wide INCLUDE,
then that's even more consistent. But if the actual variable names vary
between program then it's created more trouble than they're worth. Consider
one program with:
EQUATE CUST.NAME TO CUST.REC(1)
and another with
EQUATE CUSTOMER.NAME TO CUSTOMER.REC(1)
So any value gained with consistent names is lost as you have to memorize
multiple expressions for (1). The only consistent thing is that it's field
1. You cannot mis-type '1' if you mean '1'.
In conclusion, like other subjective versions of MV programming, you use
what you learned or are good with. Personally, I don't use REC(100) for data
records. I use REC(100) for intermal programming when I've exceeded the
dynamics of dynamic arrays or for file handles. Maybe if I managed 200-300
user systems then the nanosecond differences would make a difference. But
for my collection of many 20-60 user clients, I see no difference.
My 6 cents.
Mark Johnson
- Original Message -
From: Larry Hiscock [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 5:42 PM
Subject: RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
I don't recall InfoBasic dynamic arrays ever being limited to 1 or 2
dimensions, but then, I didn't start working with PI until the early 80's.
As far back as I can recall ('79 or so, on a Microdata Reality system)
dynamic arrays supported three dimensions.
So, enlighten me :-D
Larry Hiscock
Western Computer Services
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stevenson,
Charles
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 8:24 AM
To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
Subject: RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
From: Clifton Oliver
Always remember that you should never believe any rule containing
the
words 'always' or 'never'.
Its corollary:
All truth is relative.
and
We will not tolerate intolerance.
taught in all seriousness by Postmodern liberal arts professors.
And exactly opposite of what moderns as diverse as Patrick Henry and
Voltaire would say:
I disagree with you, but defend your right to believe it.
I was always amused to see which ones caught that and which ones just
wrote
it down in their notes.
But, Clif, I would think _most_ of your students came with BSs not BAs.
Like I said, most of this POSTmodern stuff comes from the Liberal Arts
side
of academe. The colleges of sciences cannot be so cavalier. They accept
the Enlightenment (modern) notion that there is an external reality, a
notion that historically grew out of the Christian notion of a rational
(thank-you, Greeks) transcendent God (thank-you, Hebrews) who created a
rationally coherent universe (thank-you God; as opposed for a mostly
RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
Charles Stevenson goes on: [snipping the bit about tolerance] Do you know why dimensioned arrays were first limited to only 1 or 2 dimensions in Pick or Info-Basic? There was probably some concern about memory consumption way back when MD and Pick ran with only 64KB of core. I think it was just simpler for the designers to set a low limit. It looks like the subsequent designers never anticipated adding more dimensions, rather they focused on backward compatibility (which in this case has multiple interpretations). Would it be a terrible complication to the compiler to allow as many dimensions as the programmer needs? There are two complications: modifying the compiler and modifying the run machine. Modifying any of the compilers to support additional dimensionality would be easy. Modifying the existing op-code structures, descriptors, and run machines are likely a huge challenge these days. This type of extensibility needs to be thought of in the early development stages. Best regards, Gyle P.S. I designed URMA with support for 2^31 dimensions. Yeah, I know, after about 9 dimensions, you probably run out of memory today. Who knows, maybe terabytes of memory will be cheap tomorrow. The motto was, do not limit the design to today's technology. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
But simply saying that it makes no difference in any case is not true. Re-read my post. Did I say that it makes no difference? I believe the upshot was, bowing to Yogi Berra on his 80th, that the difference ain't what it used to be. Our greatest duty in this life is to help others. And please, if you can't help them, could you at least not hurt them? - H.H. the Dalai Lama When buying selling are controlled by legislation, the first thing to be bought sold are the legislators - P.J. O'Rourke Dan Fitzgerald From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: Re: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimenssioned Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 23:48:06 EDT In a message dated 5/13/2005 2:00:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I believe the upshot was, bowing to Yogi Berra on his 80th, that the difference ain't what it used to be. True and false. If you are processing, sequentially, elements of a list then it probably makes no difference. However most UPDATE programs actually touch elements in a semi-random fashion. So you might have something like Inventory(3) = price Inventory(10) = onhand Inventory(21) = lastpo This type of update, not being in order, would exhibit much greater speed than the same update using a dynamic array. That being said, it's possible that the majority of an UPDATE type process isn't actually pushing values into cells, but doing lots of other things that changing the type of array would not affect. But simply saying that it makes no difference in any case is not true. Will Johnson Fast Forward Technologies --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
From: Clifton Oliver Always remember that you should never believe any rule containing the words 'always' or 'never'. Its corollary: All truth is relative. and We will not tolerate intolerance. taught in all seriousness by Postmodern liberal arts professors. And exactly opposite of what moderns as diverse as Patrick Henry and Voltaire would say: I disagree with you, but defend your right to believe it. I was always amused to see which ones caught that and which ones just wrote it down in their notes. But, Clif, I would think _most_ of your students came with BSs not BAs. Like I said, most of this POSTmodern stuff comes from the Liberal Arts side of academe. The colleges of sciences cannot be so cavalier. They accept the Enlightenment (modern) notion that there is an external reality, a notion that historically grew out of the Christian notion of a rational (thank-you, Greeks) transcendent God (thank-you, Hebrews) who created a rationally coherent universe (thank-you God; as opposed for a mostly rational coherent UniVerse, thank-you Meeks Herbert. (It is strange how God's universe gets lowercased, where Meeks'Herbert's gets capitalized (thank-you English).) ). And now - to keep our beloved moderator, Chuck Barouch, from kicking this post into the shallow end of u2-community: Do you know why dimensioned arrays were first limited to only 1 or 2 dimensions in Pick or Info-Basic? Would it be a terrible complication to the compiler to allow as many dimensions as the programmer needs? Whether or not dimensioned arrays are useful for manipulating stored data records, they have other legitimate uses. But they would be much more useful if the programmer could specify as many dimensions as made sense in his application. Chuck I'm not the Chuck who adds a quotation thing in the middle of his name Stevenson --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
I don't recall InfoBasic dynamic arrays ever being limited to 1 or 2
dimensions, but then, I didn't start working with PI until the early 80's.
As far back as I can recall ('79 or so, on a Microdata Reality system)
dynamic arrays supported three dimensions.
So, enlighten me :-D
Larry Hiscock
Western Computer Services
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stevenson, Charles
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 8:24 AM
To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
Subject: RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
From: Clifton Oliver
Always remember that you should never believe any rule containing
the
words 'always' or 'never'.
Its corollary:
All truth is relative.
and
We will not tolerate intolerance.
taught in all seriousness by Postmodern liberal arts professors.
And exactly opposite of what moderns as diverse as Patrick Henry and
Voltaire would say:
I disagree with you, but defend your right to believe it.
I was always amused to see which ones caught that and which ones just
wrote
it down in their notes.
But, Clif, I would think _most_ of your students came with BSs not BAs.
Like I said, most of this POSTmodern stuff comes from the Liberal Arts side
of academe. The colleges of sciences cannot be so cavalier. They accept
the Enlightenment (modern) notion that there is an external reality, a
notion that historically grew out of the Christian notion of a rational
(thank-you, Greeks) transcendent God (thank-you, Hebrews) who created a
rationally coherent universe (thank-you God; as opposed for a mostly
rational coherent UniVerse, thank-you Meeks Herbert. (It is strange how
God's universe gets lowercased, where Meeks'Herbert's gets capitalized
(thank-you English).) ).
And now - to keep our beloved moderator, Chuck Barouch, from kicking this
post into the shallow end of u2-community:
Do you know why dimensioned arrays were first limited to only 1 or 2
dimensions in Pick or Info-Basic?
Would it be a terrible complication to the compiler to allow as many
dimensions as the programmer needs?
Whether or not dimensioned arrays are useful for manipulating stored data
records, they have other legitimate uses. But they would be much more
useful if the programmer could specify as many dimensions as made sense in
his application.
Chuck I'm not the Chuck who adds a quotation thing in the middle of his
name Stevenson
---
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To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
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RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
D'oh! Disregard last post. I'm working on too little sleep. DIMENSIONED
arrays, not dynamic ...
Larry Hiscock
Western Computer Services
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Larry Hiscock
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 2:42 PM
To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
Subject: RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
I don't recall InfoBasic dynamic arrays ever being limited to 1 or 2
dimensions, but then, I didn't start working with PI until the early 80's.
As far back as I can recall ('79 or so, on a Microdata Reality system)
dynamic arrays supported three dimensions.
So, enlighten me :-D
Larry Hiscock
Western Computer Services
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stevenson, Charles
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 8:24 AM
To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
Subject: RE: [U2] Dymanic vs Dimensioned
From: Clifton Oliver
Always remember that you should never believe any rule containing
the
words 'always' or 'never'.
Its corollary:
All truth is relative.
and
We will not tolerate intolerance.
taught in all seriousness by Postmodern liberal arts professors.
And exactly opposite of what moderns as diverse as Patrick Henry and
Voltaire would say:
I disagree with you, but defend your right to believe it.
I was always amused to see which ones caught that and which ones just
wrote
it down in their notes.
But, Clif, I would think _most_ of your students came with BSs not BAs.
Like I said, most of this POSTmodern stuff comes from the Liberal Arts side
of academe. The colleges of sciences cannot be so cavalier. They accept
the Enlightenment (modern) notion that there is an external reality, a
notion that historically grew out of the Christian notion of a rational
(thank-you, Greeks) transcendent God (thank-you, Hebrews) who created a
rationally coherent universe (thank-you God; as opposed for a mostly
rational coherent UniVerse, thank-you Meeks Herbert. (It is strange how
God's universe gets lowercased, where Meeks'Herbert's gets capitalized
(thank-you English).) ).
And now - to keep our beloved moderator, Chuck Barouch, from kicking this
post into the shallow end of u2-community:
Do you know why dimensioned arrays were first limited to only 1 or 2
dimensions in Pick or Info-Basic?
Would it be a terrible complication to the compiler to allow as many
dimensions as the programmer needs?
Whether or not dimensioned arrays are useful for manipulating stored data
records, they have other legitimate uses. But they would be much more
useful if the programmer could specify as many dimensions as made sense in
his application.
Chuck I'm not the Chuck who adds a quotation thing in the middle of his
name Stevenson
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