Excessive optimization (was Re: what was VMS/OpenVMS written in?)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:56 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
>
> In article <AANLkTikb6zODLg856Pt7n7s7zbjv3m=rftz9FUPkaOGS at mail.gmail.com>,
>    Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I think you are imagining it backwards....
>
> Huh?  A for loop is just a while loop with an initialization chunk and
> a per-loop chunk at the end of the while block.  What's weird is that
> for allows the condition to be omitted and have an implied "true" put
> in its place, but while doesn't allow the condition to be omitted.

That is a clear way of putting it.  I was focusing on the questor's
issue about how the construct didn't make sense with null elements and
got tangled up elsewhere.

> The loop block is not executed
> at all if the condition is false, unlike a do/while loop which always
> executes the block once.  But I'm sure you knew that, too.

Right.  I was unclear about the case of once-through vs skipping the
payload, but that wasn't the aspect of it that I was trying to
address.

Apologies for muddling the issue.  As I said earlier, I should have
taken the time to proof what I read, and in my haste, failed so to do.

-ethan