Improving C

[Hal Perkins]

>         Do you want a fast, powerful language like C, or do you want
> a hand-holding, slow language like Pascal?  May I submit that Modula-2
> or ADA might be just what you are looking for.  They have type checking and
> array bounds policing galore.  Please do not subject the rest of us to
> your unneccessary overhead.

What on earth is this nonsense?  There's nothing inherently inefficient
about Pascal compared to C.  Most compilers allow you to turn off any runtime
checks, and the resulting code can be as fast as that generated by a C
compiler that does an equivalent job of code generation.

Now, this is personal opinion, but...

I'm getting real tired of the C bigots on the net who take gratuitous
pot-shots at other programming languages; who have apparently seen "revealed
truth", and it's called C, and it's better than anything else because they
say so.  Pascal has some problems, but so does C (take a look at all the
debates in net.lang.c about the true meaning of obscure C constructs).
Neither one is the "ultimate" programming language.  So lets stop the non-
constructive putdowns of programming languages that do not subscribe to
the True Religion of the Unix hackers.  It's just wasting everyone's time.

(If you feel moved to reply to this with constructive comments, please do
so.  Keep abusive remarks to yourself.)

Hal Perkins                         UUCP: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
Cornell Computer Science            ARPA: hal at cornell  BITNET: hal at crnlcs