ambiguous ?

[Andrew P. Mullhaupt]

In article <6611 at ficc.uu.net>, peter at ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <14092 at lanl.gov> jlg at lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
> > I am a reasonably experienced C programmer.
> 
> You are an experienced Fortran programmer who has learned to speak C
> fluently. You don't think in it, as is demonstrated by your frequent
> postings flaming about this or that aspect of C that offends you.
> 
> I think it's time for comp.lang.jim-giles-and-herman-rubin.
Count me in (sort of). Sure, I too come to C from another programming
language. In fact I come from about four or five. Let's get one thing
straight - They tell you when you learn APL that you will learn to 
think in it; They tell you when you learn OO style language that you
need to think a new way. You want to put C on this list? FINE. But
let's draw the line between programming as a professional activity
and writing programs as a traditional ritualized observation. I 
quote from one of my favorite axioms of programming:

>From David Gries, "The Science of Computer Programming", (1981)
Springer-Verlag, New York.

page 235.: "*PRINCIPLE: Program INTO a programming language, not
                        IN it."

As I continue to study C, I find that the Draft Standard is a resonable
attempt to lay out a language capable of expressive, readable
representations of algorithms without destroying the connection to
the less well defined past. This is not a swipe at the original
K&R, either; but at the wide variety of existing implementations
which seem to make a mockery of the word standard. 

Perhaps there are a lot of C programmers who do not feel inclined to
poke through all the nooks and crannies of the Standard, or of their
own local flavor of C, but it is a short term view in my opinion. The
pain of this round of standardization is a result of the long delay
since the last. Ada has surely suffered from the length of its ten
year standardization cycle; Pascal is surely in need of an overhaul;
Isn't it obvious that as our understanding of algorithms evolves,
and so does our hardware, that our language technology needs to grow
but in a controlled way? You don't want to commit to a language that
is totally different next year, nor one which will not meet your needs.
But this is no argument against a strong standard, and a consistent
one.

Don't tell me to think in C. Don't tell me to think in any computer
language. I have devoted a large portion of my life to learning how
to think, (with mixed success, perhaps), but I know enough to trust
David Gries' admonition. 

PROGRAM INTO A LANGUAGE, NOT IN IT!

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt