Are you still there?


Tue, 26 Jan 93 4:28:50 MET


(Fare->Dennis #9, 26/1/93)
Hello, Dennis !

>> 
>> Fare',
>> 
>> 	Hi...just checking to make sure you are receiving my messages.  I sent
>> you one a couple of days ago, but have not heard a response yet.  Just
>> checking...
>> 
>> 				Dennis
>> 

 It seems we have difficulties reaching each other.
 I've sent you a reply to the message where you talked to me about Andreas &
Gunnar, and I'm not sure you received it. Please acknowledge; I now number
this mail letter, and will number next ones until I'm sure you receive (I have
experienced some mail returns, etc, while mailing to you). 'hope you received
suggestion about a MOOSE forum, and mostly found someone to do it.
 Well, my main problem is up to now I worked in french, and all my notes were
in french. So now, here is part of it translated (my ARJfied notes are 200Kb
long).
 Here are some features I expect the system to run at high logical level
(standard language programming), and that the compiler and/or the kernel should
support:
* Objects are contained in Object Zones (OZ's); the simplest (logical) OZ is
a set, which can be physically implemented by, say, a bitmap, or a list, etc.
A more general OZ does not contain only objects, but also attributes of these
objects (which depend in nature of the OZ and of the objects): for example, a
room in a CAD program may contain objects, which each have its intrinsic shape;
but each object has its position in the room for attribute.
* standard attributes are printing/showing format (for example, for an integer,
the base hexadecimal, decimal, octal, binary, n-ary, etc; for a complex
structure involving many types of number, ...); other common attributes are
names, debug info, comments, translation into different languages, etc.
* Existence range or compute range of any object is arbitrary: any object can
be defined relatively to any other; it can be computed at any arbitrary time
(preprocessing, compile, interpret, run, more than one object in parallel or
in sequence at one time, etc).
* There is a virtual reference constructor which takes a pointer and returns
the pointed object. If the pointer is in a constant variable, you have a
virtual equivalent of physical C++ x& 's.
* There is a virtual pointer class, and thus virtual reference with virtual
pointers. You can by this mean address logically any type of variable anywhere
in the computer, etc, without changing your source program (but a big change
in a variable's nature may cause big change in optimised object code). There
may be a virtual type of pointer where the data isn't really read and written,
but given as parameter to look and modify procedures. The fact that what you
read isn't what you wrote is similar to the fact a variable may be shared
between procedures. (practical example: ln -s = symbolic link under u*ix).
* There is the standard recursive question in OO environment:the class class's
class is the class class (itself), unless it is only a subclass of class.
Well, doesn't matter if the Kernel is well written.


		   ,
		Fare

P.S. : I couldn't contact andreas & Gunnar; my mail to the address you gave me
was returned with an unknown user 550 error message. Do you confirm the good
address is ANDREAS@dhhalden.no ?

P.P.S: Happy new year ! (It's now the chinese year of the rooster or whatever)