RYMCAC (Re : Yet More Crap About C)

[Brian J Haughey]

In article <14289 at lambda.UUCP>, jlg at lambda.UUCP (Jim Giles) writes:
> From article <ROWE.90Mar23110717 at stella.cme.nist.gov>, by rowe at cme.nist.gov (Walter Rowe):
> In the book, "The Right Stuff", it was pointed out that every time a
> test pilot was killed in a test, the other test pilots would place the
> blame on the _man_ and not the _machine_.  It was always something
> like: "old Joe was a fair pilot, but this time he screwed the pooch."
> Now, we all know that some of these early jets were deathtraps and that
> blaming the machine was the correct interpretation of most of those
> crashes.
> 
> Well, C programmers tend to have the same 'test pilot' mentality.  If
> someone has problems with a language feature it's never the fault of
> the language design.  But the fact of the matter is that C has a number
> of things in it which even Dennis Ritchie would probably do differently
> if he got a second chance.  So, while it _may_ be possible to 'fly'
> C without the 'wings' comming off, it is also true that the 'wings'
> should have been more sturdy to begin with.
> 
> J. Giles

I think all these arguments are a load of cobblers. Sure, 'C' allows you
to write destructive programs, and if the programmer isn't careful enough or
competent enough, he/she will write diastrous programs. But the same argument
can be applied to assembler - any damage you can do in 'C' you can do in 
assembler. Hmm. Maybe machines are badly designed if by using assembler we
can write programs that have undesired affects...

The simple fact is : use whatever language is appropriate. Use Pascal if you
want to, if you feel you need a degree of protection from your own inadequacies
or lack of precision. Use Fortran if you feel it's useful for maths or sci
programming. Use Cobol for... Hmm, well maybe don't use Cobol. But don't
criticise a language because it's flexible and powerful.

As for me, I'll stick to assembler and C for microprocessor development. And
yes, I use some Pascal from time to time.

Regards, bjh                          "There's no future in time travel"
University College Dublin