[e-lang] get/put for Slots

[David Hopwood]

Norman Hardy wrote:
> Algol 68 insists on orthogonality.
> In particular it wants to make the type constructors REF and ROW 
> orthogonal.
> In Algol68 there are types: INT, REF INT, ROW INT, REF ROW INT, ROW  REF
> INT, etc.
> They are all different and all useful.
> I wrote something up on this a couple of years ago at
> <http://cap-lore.com/Languages/aref.html>.

# Warning: These ideas don't fit in the head along side those of
# "normal computer science". Understanding them may damage you ability to
# converse with other computer scientists.
#
# [snip description of Algol 68's REF constructor for cell types]

I learnt this viewpoint from ML rather than Algol 68. Isn't it rather
conventional among computer scientists? I think it's only unconventional
among programmers with no formal computer science background.

Anyway, despite *also* having directly mutable arrays, E is in the Algol68/ML
family of languages in this respect, and changing the syntax for slot access
wouldn't change that.

-- 
David Hopwood <david.nospam.hopwood at blueyonder.co.uk>