Re:Awesome Pascal – A curated list of Delphi, FreePascal, an...
by augustk on Monday May 13, 2019 @11:47AM
(#19900455)
If you are implementing a compiler you do what makes most sense for the target language/machine. On the other hand, if you specify exactly how each ill-defined operation should be handled you
1. restrict the freedom of compiler writers. On very small systems, for instance, array bound checking may not be implemented,
2. make programmer rely on non-obvious behaviour/results which makes programs harder to understand and maintain,
3. make the language specification more complicated.
Re:Awesome Pascal – A curated list of Delphi, FreePascal, an...
by Crinus on Monday May 13, 2019 @12:14PM
(#19900756)
Or you can simply type "Integer to byte conversion and nil dereference are machine dependent" (or implementation dependent if you prefer, but the point is to have something).
1. restrict the freedom of compiler writers. On very small systems, for instance, array bound checking may not be implemented,
2. make programmer rely on non-obvious behaviour/results which makes programs harder to understand and maintain,
3. make the language specification more complicated.