Re: "static" declaration

[Dave Long <address@hidden>]

> I guess I'm suggesting that there's a maximum bug level that people
> can tolerate, and as tool improvements cut the bug rate per machine
> instruction, the typical program size immediately grows to match.

Makes sense.  (did the maximum
bug level increase once reboots
no longer meant walking to the
machine room?)

>           ... in MMM, Brooks, in his discussion of the second system
> effect, notes the fact that OS/360 used 29 bytes of core to keep track
> of the existence of 366-day leap years, and condemned it as
> unwarranted bloat.

His argument still stands, though.
In his day, each machine came with
several operators; he calculated it
was cheaper for one of them to flip
the date once every four years than
to burn core.

If core memory ran $1/byte in 1965,
and ram runs $.20/megabyte now, an
equivalent bloat might be to tie up
150M for that date routine.

-Dave

(I was surprised, when reading Stoy
and Strachey's OS6 paper, that store
was sufficiently expensive ca. 1972
that they were concerned even about
*source* bloat:)
> Although these include TAB, because it is useful when writing routines
> for controlling devices which use it, it is too device-dependent to
> be used in the system for any other purpose.  To be forced to use
> only SPACE would be unacceptable, however, as half the characters in
> the average well laid out program would be spaces, and we therefore
> include a device-independent character, 4-SPACES.

::::::::

> I don't have any objection to static variables.  I just want to be able
> to see the list of all instance variables of a class.  Java, with minimally
> decent programming conventions (put all the variable declarations at
> either the start or the end of the class rather than all over the place) is
> fine with me as far as this goes.

What is the difference between a static
variable, which is declared in the spot
where it is used, not at toplevel with
all the other global variables, and an
instance variable "local" to a method, 
which is declared in the spot where it
is used, not at the start or end of the
class with all the other i.v.'s?