Blocks and procedures

Abstract

Mössenböck proposes the argument block as a language construct for using statement sequences as arguments for procedures [Mös92]. Such a construct enables users to define their own control structures. Mössenböck is inspired by S MALLTALK -80 [GR83] and claims that most languages lack support of argument blocks but does not take into account a quality which in practice is crucial to their utilization. Stolz [Sto93] therefore falsely concludes the equivalence of argument blocks and anonymous procedures and points out that anonymous procedures were already supported in ALGOL 68 [vWMP + 76]. We show the difference between blocks and procedures and describe implementation patterns which are taken under consideration for the programming language A RISTARCH /L. A RISTARCH /L is supposed to support the distributed operating system A RISTARCH /OS which is under development in S AMOS , a project undertaken by the Operating Systems Research Group at the University of Karlsruhe.