On 2012.5.19 1:46 PM, Peter da Silva wrote:
> Smalltalk came out ten years later.
Smalltalk was in production in 72 making it a contemporary with C. Smalltalk
80 was the first released version, roughly coinciding with the K&R book. And
Simula had all the trappings of a modern OO language (and a lot most still
don't have) in 1967.
But...
> Pascal was basically useless, so much of the language was undefined.
> SQL is not a procedural language, I don't know what it's doing in the list
> Lisp and Prolog are not low enough level to be used in the problem space
> that C addresses.
The point of the list was not to show alternatives to C as a system
programming language, but to show that there's only so much "it was 1970,
computers were primitive, and nobody knew what they were doing" can forgive
C's design.
> And most of the problems you list are complete bullshit, if you mean them as
> problems they should have avoided 50 years ago.
No, that's why I avoided bagging on C until Jarkko trolled^Wasked.
The list was done evaluating C as a language we use and are heavily influenced
by in 2012. It's worth doing because so many languages are still influenced
by C and are repeating its sins (particularly with regard to types and strings
and I/O). And Jarko asked.
Evaluating C in its historical context is a different exercise, and has a
totally different utility, which you've done.
>> Basic language features done by a preprocessor.
>
> Like Lisp.
I let the rest slide, because it's all in historical context, but not this
one. Just because another language does it don't make it right.
Furthermore, if you're referring to Lisp macros, Lisp made the correct choice
to have their macros be part of the grammar (a nice side effect of the grammar
being so simple). C macros just jam themselves in wherever.
> I'll give you the fall-through in case.
Why you're so very generous.
> And any other systems programming language I've used has been worse. If PL/1
> had caught on, you'd have been pissed.
More so than I already am? ;) I kinda would have liked to have seen a worse
language be the popular one. Maybe it would have been bad enough we'd have
junked it by now for something better.
I continue to put my hopes in Go. They so far have avoided the most important
mistake in designing a system programming language: forgetting its a system
programming language.
--
The past has a vote, but not a veto.
-- Mordecai M. Kaplan
