Re: Ada syntax patents

From: Charles Lindsey (chl_at_clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:31:48 GMT

In <1109170494.968883.195150@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com> "rien" <aplisson-google@stochastique.net> writes:

>here is a short article (including some possible interresting links) i
>found about this patent:

>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1766949,00.asp

According to the patent application?filed in mid-November by Paul Vick,
lead architect for Visual Basic .Net at Microsoft; Amanda Silver, a
program manager on the Visual Basic team; and an individual in Bellevue,
Wash., named Costica Barsan?the IsNot operator is described as a single
operator that allows a comparison of two variables to determine if the two
point to the same location in memory.

May I draw the attention of the assembled company to the built-in operator
ISNT in ALGOL 68, which does precisely that.

Moreover, apparently this patent applies only to use of that operator in
the language BASIC.

Yes, maybe it is valid on the grounds that nobody in his right mind would
describe BASIC as a "language", and that therefore is in not obvious that
concepts could be lifted from Real languages into it :=). 

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
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