An idea!

[Matthew Tuck]

> You get the idea? we could have a class which uses directly calls
> interrupts and suchlike.

Well the idea of a program object is not a bad one.  I previously
thought the original call should be done by specifying a object and
initial method, so you can just change to another method when you
recompiled.  But if there were other things you wanted to have, such as
this, specifying just an object would be better.  I'm not convinced
however that interrupts should be exposed to the programmer, at least on
this level, since it breaks the cross-platform capability of a language.

The model of putting things here certainly could be reasonable, but I
think things like div-zero errors are handled adequately and better by
existing exception mechanisms.  This would be because the behaviour is
not global to the program but can be specified to be different
throughout the program, through recovery and such.

It sounds like you're more familiar than me with programming using
interrupts.  What sort of things would you generally do, and which of
these would be better done if they were visible rather than designed in
a cross-platform way?

I'm not necessary naysaying, but I'm aiming for an application language
rather than a system language, in part to try and eliminate C from
applications programming, where it is entirely misused, propogating who
knows how many bugs into our software.

If these things could be done while maintaining the essential
characteristics of the language as designed for applications rather than
operating systems, which I think C does an adequate job of, then they
would be OK with me.  But I think they can be done in a cross-platform
way.  If this is too inefficient, I would say our libraries are not rich
enough.  An example would be why DirectX was introduced into Windows, to
allow controlled and efficient low-level access.

-- 
     Matthew Tuck - Software Developer & All-Round Nice Guy
             mailto:matty@box.net.au (ICQ #8125618)
       Check out the Ultra programming language project!
              http://www.box.net.au/~matty/ultra/