Hi, in analogy to to a programming language which requires variables to be declared (and given a value) before they are being used, I was expecting that terms in a documentation are defined (or explained) before being used. The term "field" in http://dist.codehaus.org/x10/documentation/languagespec/x10- latest.pdf doesn't seem to comply to this principle (or I have missed something).
Only on page 71 I found the following. "Objects may have instance fields, or simply fields: places to store data that is pertinent to the object. Fields, like variables, may be mutable (var) or immutable (val) ." Is this the definition I was looking for ? Is it correct that this indicates that there is a distinction between the variable name (var or val) that is the class member and the memory location (aka field) that it is pointing to ? And the memory location is eventually nameless, so you can access it only via a var or val pointing to it - and there may be several var or val pointing to the same location ? My apologies if I was too picky about this, but other programming languages (like FORTRAN, C, C++) are making no distinction between the variable and the memory location it is referring to. If something points or refers to a variable, it is called a pointer (in C) or a reference (in C++). Pondering about the formulation on page 71, I got the impression that a variable in X10 is more like a reference in C++. Could someone please clarify ? And when clarified, I would suggest that http://dist.codehaus.org/x10/documentation/languagespec/x10-latest.pdf would be updated with this clarification and this text would be added early in the document, say in "Overview of X10". Thanks ! -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards Dr. Christoph Pospiech High Performance & Parallel Computing Phone: +49-351 86269826 Mobile: +49-171-765 5871 E-Mail: christoph.pospi...@de.ibm.com ------------------------------------- IBM Deutschland GmbH Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Erich Clementi Geschäftsführung: Martin Jetter (Vorsitzender), Reinhard Reschke, Christoph Grandpierre, Klaus Lintelmann, Michael Diemer, Martina Koederitz Sitz der Gesellschaft: Ehningen / Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 14562 WEEE-Reg.-Nr. DE 99369940 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Increase Visibility of Your 3D Game App & Earn a Chance To Win $500! Tap into the largest installed PC base & get more eyes on your game by optimizing for Intel(R) Graphics Technology. Get started today with the Intel(R) Software Partner Program. Five $500 cash prizes are up for grabs. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intelisp-dev2dev _______________________________________________ X10-users mailing list X10-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/x10-users
