Applications, libraries, and test suites

"Van der Meulen explained how abstract data types in the Torrix system permit software to be written only once and yet applied in a wide variety of algebraic systems. He also commented on its implementation in Algol 68.

Discussion

Curtis: I wonder about the execution efficiency of your system. In general this demands that the actual operations are implemented directly in corresponding machine code when it is available.

Van der Meulen: Future hardware is likely to permit execution of micro-code without loss of efficiency.

Wichmann: On present computers you must use procedure calls or put the operations in line thereby losing the separate compilation facility.

Wichmann: How do you handle constants, e.g. 10.1?

Van der Meulen; Yes, there are difficulties here. One solution is to require all constants to be input as literals."