Subject: Re: How about this for a built-in...

From: [email-masked] (Howie Michalski)
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:47:48 -0700

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>From uunet!parc.xerox.com!pavel Thu Oct  8 14:11:04 1992
From: Pavel Curtis <uunet!parc.xerox.com!Pavel>
Sender: Pavel Curtis <uunet!parc.xerox.com!pavel>
Fake-Sender: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Subject: Re: How about this for a built-in...
Date: 	Thu, 8 Oct 1992 10:33:30 PDT
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>> Date:	Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:40:27 -0700
>> From:	[email-masked] (Seth I. Rich)
>> 
>> is there any reason why a get_task_info() shouldn't be a builtin?

>From: [email-masked]
>The principle of
>conceptual parsimony, therefore, argues against making it a built-in function.

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I agree.  A function of this type seems best suited for a "standard" library.
One could even use C as a case in point; the stdio.h library contains, perhaps,
some of its most used functions - and, as with all libraries, can be written.
using built-ins.

Now, while we're on the subject of built-ins, how about something along the
lines of "you_know_where_Im_going_with_this_so_finish_it_off()" <grin>.  There
may be no difference in performance, but talk about significantly easier than
a primitive.

Cheers,
Howie

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From: David Bofinger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 18:57:05 -0700

Pavel paraphrases:
>Is there any reason why get_task_info() *should* be a built-in?

The obvious answer is efficiency, given that MOO runs so much more slowly
than C it is reasonable to add a built-in to the server for anything that
is wasting a lot of CPU time.

I'd be mildly surprised if get_task_info() fell into this category, but who
knows. Does an easy method exist for deciding which library functionss have
been wasting CPU time? An interesting built-in would be one that returned
the CPU time consumed by the task so far -- is this worthwhile/possible/old
news?

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David Bofinger	AARNet:	[email-masked]
                Snail:	Dept. of Theoretical Physics, RSPhysSE, ANU, ACT, 2601
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