> Still, if C gets fat pointers that's at least a step in the right direction. AFAIK the C standard doesn't prevent an implementation from using fat pointers,

> Still, if C gets fat pointers that's at least a step in the right direction. AFAIK the C standard doesn't prevent an implementation from using fat pointers, this is one of the reasons why the conversion from pointer to integer only works in one direction. This is actually necessary for segmented memory. The compiler is allowed to optimize based on the assumption, which allocation a pointer comes from (including the allocations boundaries, i.e. size), even if bytewise the pointers would be equal, so you could argue, that C abstract machine already has fat pointers.