Fortran has an EQUIVALENCE statement, COBOL has redefines. Both allows the subversion of types at the drop of a hat.
Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mouse > Sent: 30 April 2016 02:56 > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've > sent email from] > > >> The main thing C has that most other languages don't is *unsafe* data > >> typing - the ability to subvert the type system at the drop of a > >> cast, and the programming tradition to do this a lot. > > {Sighs.} You really seem to have it out for C. > > I didn't write that the double-quoted text, but it seems to me that you are > reading a pejorative attitude into it that I'm not sure belongs there. That _is_ > one of the bigger things C has - and, like many language features, it's a double- > edged sword. It makes possible a lot of things, many useful, many dangerous, > and in some cases, even, both at once. > > It is possible to come fairly close to type-safe C. But even in the most type-safe > of my programs, I sometimes find a need to break the type safety for one > reason or another - and C lets me do that without extreme gyrations. (I > remember the FORTRAN I used in my larval phase, back in the 1980s under > VMS; IIRC doing the equivalent of following a pointer was rather difficult > without the use of a helper routine and a language extension.) > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mo...@rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B