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Date:Mon Mar 27 17:30:20 1993 
Subject:Re: Inspecting the runnable saved state of a pop process 
From:Steve Knight 
Volume-ID:930327.02 

Luc writes:
> It's a pity that processes aren't implemented as records. It would be
> MUCH CLEANER to have the process's information simply available as
> fields.

This is a confusion between the implementation of processes and the provision
of access/update procedures.  Processes are not records -- they are reified
procedure invocations -- and enormously more complex as a result.


> From [Aaron Sloman's] posting I
> take it that it would be difficult (too late?) for Poplog to achieve
> this. However, if Pop9x is aiming for a clean Pop standard, then should
> it be bogged down just because the Poplog implementation is deficient?

I think this misses the point of Aaron's posting.  The suggestion was that
the provision of -evalproc- makes it possible to provide the more intuitive
interface.  However, what I'm interested in (as is Luc) are suggestions for
the more intuitive procedures.

e.g. 

proc_subscr_length( P ) -> N
	Returns the length of P's stack

proc_subscr_stack( N, P ) -> ITEM
	Returns the Nth item on the stack of the process P

proc_copy_stack( P, CONS ) -> ITEM
	Given a constructor (e.g. conslist, consvector etc) returns a
	copy of the stack of process P built using CONS.  Leaves the
	stack of P unchanged.

I think this gives the right idea.

Steve