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toward unification...

is this a proposal?
 she doe not explain what structured programming is or what
methodology is. 

p.1. "In this paper current utility  systems are shown to be inadequate.."
Nothing is shown it is paper as far as i can see.

First statement with content:p 2. "There is still no significant support
for the process of program design and development."

p.2. "we... never read core dumps for the purpose of determining what the
program is intended to do."  Why DOES she read core dumps?

Second statement  with content: p 3. "The proper way to present a
program to someone who must comprehend it is as a series of successively
more detailed descriptions."   But she doesn't understand what she just
said!  The problems of reliability have nothing to do with compilers; and how
DOES she propose that a person understand  a program?

p.3 what is this crap about  the compiler extracting levels of
abstraction!!!!!   super decompilation?????

p.3 yes more abstract versions  should be more amenable to verification
BUT they are also EASIER TO WRITE!!!!!


p.4 what is her conception of an editor? or a "file structure"?

i NEVER think of programs as "text: lines strings and lexemes"!!!

i disagree(p4)  that text management is crucial; its important, but
not crucial.

p4. knowledge based programming?

general feeling: there is no attempt to change current programming practice
i.e. all we need to do to WIN is add a few more programmer aids.
I don't believe it. Most programers don't know how to program, and
until we can change that we LOSE. most programmers program botton-up
because that's how they are trained and thats how languages are
designed to be used. The approach is dead wrong!!

p.5 i don't understand what she means by levels. her examples
are syntactic: lexems, lines, programs. these "levels" are
useless. Programming has very little to do with syntax and text.


p.6. more syntax, damn it. 

p.6. a unified manipulation facility. bull shit.
she has a very  string oriented view of programming. this crap about
editors understanding  syntax is easy (and irrelevant).
the problems(again!) are NOT better editors, spelling correctors,
and the like.

P.7. PLEASE tell me what you think an editor is.  An editor IS NOT a 
programming language.

her characterizations are poor
p.1: structured programming refers to the techniques now being explored
for producing programs which work correctly...

p6. editors.. create and destroy files and manipulate the atoms within the files

p7 manipulation systems: operate on ..objects that make represent some
part of the program, and their operations are primarily manipulative.

yes, computers: machines which use electricity!

"island universe" (p.7) FAR OUT!!

P.8. still more syntax, sigh.

p.9. what is "semi-automatic specification generation", pray tell??

p.9 It appears that her whole understanding of programming is syntactic.
her understanding of macros is quite superficial.

p10. I do not understand what is  being done here. "Note that
we can reasonably ask programmers to provide more information
about a function than they are now accustomed to.", she says, 
implying that she will do something with it. What will she do
with it. and why should a programmers supply it. I.e., she
must convince the programmer that it is to his advantage to
do so.  Nothing is said.


summary: i have no idea what she is proposing.