Blocks and procedures

Abstract

Mössenböck proposes the argument block as a language construct for using statement sequences as arguments for procedures [Mös92]. Such a construct enables users to define their own control structures. Mössenböck is inspired by SMALLTALK-80 [GR83] and claims that most languages lack support of argument blocks but does not take into account a quality which in practice is crucial to their utilization. Stolz [Sto93] therefore falsely concludes the equivalence of argument blocks and anonymous procedures and points out that anonymous procedures were already supported in ALGOL 68 [vWMP⁺76]. We show the difference between blocks and procedures and describe implementation patterns which are taken under consideration for the programming language ARISTARCH/L. ARISTARCH/L is supposed to support the distributed operating system ARISTARCH/OS which is under development in SAMOS, a project undertaken by the Operating Systems Research Group at the University of Karlsruhe.

References

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Index Terms

• Software and its engineering

  • Software notations and tools

    • General programming languages

      • Language features