Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

>Dave Wade wrote: Fortran has an EQUIVALENCE statement, COBOL has redefines. Both allows the subversion of types at the drop of a hat. I can think of two examples which were not so much subversion of types as they were a lack of language flexibility: (a) Very early in my FORTRAN experience,

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 29 April 2016 at 22:23, Eric Smith wrote: > More than 95% of my work is in C, > because that's what my clients demand, so people are usually surprised > to hear my opinion that C is a terrible choice for almost anything. I am in an analogous boat. Most of my career has

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 2016-04-30 5:20 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: On 04/30/2016 02:07 PM, Mouse wrote: Reading this really gives me the impression that it's time to fork C. There seems to me to be a need for two different languages, which I might slightly inaccurately call the one C used to be and the one it has

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 04/30/2016 04:31 PM, Sean Conner wrote: > I believe that's what the C99 keyword "restrict" is meant to address. Closing the barn door after the horses have run off. It's not in C++ and *must* be included by the programmer. I suspect if you take 100 C99 programs, 99 of them will not include

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

> On Apr 30, 2016, at 6:39 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 03:55:35PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Those who claim that there's not much difference between C and assembly >> language have never run into a true CISC machine--or perhaps they rely >> only on

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated: > On 04/30/2016 02:07 PM, Mouse wrote: > > > Reading this really gives me the impression that it's time to fork > > C. There seems to me to be a need for two different languages, which > > I might slightly inaccurately call the one C used

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 05:07:08PM -0400, Mouse wrote: > > In support of this, Iâ??d encourage everyone who works with C to read Chris > > $ > > > http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should-know.html > >

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Apr 30, 2016, at 2:07 PM, Mouse wrote: > > Reading this really gives me the impression that it's time to fork C. > There seems to me to be a need for two different languages, which I > might slightly inaccurately call the one C used to be and the one it > has

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 04/30/2016 02:07 PM, Mouse wrote: > Reading this really gives me the impression that it's time to fork > C. There seems to me to be a need for two different languages, which > I might slightly inaccurately call the one C used to be and the one > it has become (and is becoming). I vividly

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

> In support of this, Iâ??d encourage everyone who works with C to read Chris $ > http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should-know.html > http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should-know_14.html >

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 12:28:35PM -0700, Chris Hanson wrote: > On Apr 30, 2016, at 11:43 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > > > We cannot use the same outdated ideas we used to use for 'C' > > that we used 40 years ago today. Compilers have improved. > > Know your tools. And that's all I

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Apr 30, 2016, at 11:43 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > We cannot use the same outdated ideas we used to use for 'C' > that we used 40 years ago today. Compilers have improved. > Know your tools. And that's all I have said. In support of this, I’d encourage everyone who works with C

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 11:53:40AM -0600, Eric Smith wrote: > On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > Now on that we furiously agree. One problem has been getting that through > > to people who insist that C is still a high level assembler and has > > not changed from

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > Now on that we furiously agree. One problem has been getting that through > to people who insist that C is still a high level assembler and has > not changed from the time when it was a hand crafted recursive descent > LR to the

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

> On Apr 30, 2016, at 9:39 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > Now wait a minute here. C is a very old language. When it was first written > as a recursive descent compiler, compiler technology was very primitive. > K style code with primitive compilers pretty much resulted in high level >

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 03:55:35PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Those who claim that there's not much difference between C and assembly > language have never run into a true CISC machine--or perhaps they rely > only on libraries someone else has written. Now wait a minute here. C is a very old

RE: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

gt; 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 pr

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 4/29/16 6:02 PM, Ian S. King wrote: I would actually argue that C++, Java and C# are not object-oriented languages. They are languages with syntax that supports object-oriented programming - note that the original C++ was a preprocessor for a C compiler. I'll disagree with this on behalf

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

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 29 April 2016 at 15:43, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I don't know what people do now. > The answer, apparently: Step 1: Install package manager of choice. Step 2: Create a blank project using the package manager and Framework X (which is the "in" thing this week). Step 3: Slap

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

I would actually argue that C++, Java and C# are not object-oriented languages. They are languages with syntax that supports object-oriented programming - note that the original C++ was a preprocessor for a C compiler. Smalltalk, Simula, and more recently languages like Ruby are object-oriented

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

Those who claim that there's not much difference between C and assembly language have never run into a true CISC machine--or perhaps they rely only on libraries someone else has written. Writing a true global optimizing compiler that generates code as good as assembly is a nearly impossible task.

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

>> I like C for the most part, what you see is what you get. > Apparently you've never been burned by the way it handles bit fields. Not that I wrote the double-quoted line above, but...no, I don't think I have. Certainly not recently enough to remember it. But then, I don't assume more about

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 01:36:29PM -0700, Al Kossow wrote: > > > On 4/29/16 1:34 PM, ben wrote: > > >> The problem is that C doesn't just allow you to do stupid things, it's > >> actively encouraged. C doesn't just let you aim at your foot, it > >> defaults to aiming at your foot. > >> > > I

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Fri, 29 Apr 2016, Eric Smith wrote: The problem is that C doesn't just allow you to do stupid things, it's actively encouraged. C doesn't just let you aim at your foot, it defaults to aiming at your foot. I like the title that Holub chose for his book: "Enough Rope To Shoot Yourself In The

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

> On 29 Apr 2016, at 22:31 , Diane Bruce wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 02:23:55PM -0600, Eric Smith wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Ian S. King wrote: >>> C is a lot like that saw - it doesn't have a lot of guards on it, and you >>> can do stupid

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 4/29/16 1:34 PM, ben wrote: >> The problem is that C doesn't just allow you to do stupid things, it's >> actively encouraged. C doesn't just let you aim at your foot, it >> defaults to aiming at your foot. >> > I like C for the most part, what you see is what you get. Apparently you've

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 4/29/2016 2:23 PM, Eric Smith wrote: On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Ian S. King wrote: C is a lot like that saw - it doesn't have a lot of guards on it, and you can do stupid things. The problem is that C doesn't just allow you to do stupid things, it's actively

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 02:23:55PM -0600, Eric Smith wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Ian S. King wrote: > > C is a lot like that saw - it doesn't have a lot of guards on it, and you > > can do stupid things. > > The problem is that C doesn't just allow you to do stupid

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Ian S. King wrote: > C is a lot like that saw - it doesn't have a lot of guards on it, and you > can do stupid things. The problem is that C doesn't just allow you to do stupid things, it's actively encouraged. C doesn't just let you aim at your

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

> On Apr 29, 2016, at 4:03 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > > > > On 4/29/16 12:43 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> I don't know what people do now. >> > > Find libraries that other people have written, glue something together, and > move on to the next project/job. > > Then scream

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 4/29/16 12:43 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I don't know what people do now. > Find libraries that other people have written, glue something together, and move on to the next project/job. Then scream if you try to rebuild it later and the new version of the libraries didn't maintain backwards

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On 04/29/2016 11:59 AM, Ian S. King wrote: > > Don't blame the tools - blame an educational system that doesn't > teach software engineering practice, but just teaches tools. "Hey, > hold my beer and watch this!" -- Ian Maybe--I can't say. At a very early stage in my career, I was exposed to

Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 11:22 AM, Mouse wrote: > > My gripe with C is essentially the same as my grumbles with APL--it's > > far too easy to write obscure code and not document it. > > "There is not now, nor will there ever be, a language in which it's the > least bit

Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

> My gripe with C is essentially the same as my grumbles with APL--it's > far too easy to write obscure code and not document it. "There is not now, nor will there ever be, a language in which it's the least bit difficult to write bad code." Not quite true, of course; there are languages in