Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!iuvax!mailrus!sharkey!atanasoff!atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu!hascall
From: hascall@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (John Hascall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Carrying around excess baggage.
Message-ID: <1418@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 89 16:39:54 GMT
Reply-To: hascall@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (John Hascall)
Organization: Iowa State Univ. Computation Center
Lines: 52


    One problem, as I (and quite possibly, I alone) see it, in computer
    programming* today is the feeling that we have to make allowances
    for every quirky little idea that occurred in the past (we all hush
    our voices and whisper, "ooh, but it's prior art").  It may be prior,
    but a lot of it is far from art.  Isn't it time we took a careful look
    at some of the baggage we're dragging around?  Can't we just admit that
    some of it is really more trouble than it's worth.

    All the (proposed) ANSI C standard seems to have done is made every
    quirky little implementation "official".  If it didn't follow the
    spirit (or even the word of) K&R, so what we'll just expand the
    standard a little.

    Other scientific and engineering disciplines have managed to shed
    their past false steps, why can't we?

    Some items I would like to see investigated by the "committee on
    un-American programming activities":

	  # of bits in a byte
	  # of bytes in data types
	  character encoding
	  integer data format (signing schemes, etc)
	  floating point data format
	  endian-ness
	  internal value of NULL pointer
	  a constant pointer size
	  interpretation of shift operations
	  (others I'm sure)

    Now I realize how much trouble it would be to pin all these down this
    late in the game, but it sure would make writing portable code a lot
    easier (it would almost come automatically, which would be quite a plus
    given the dearth of attention paid to portability in CS courses).


* it seems a little premature to use everyone's favorite buzzword "software
  enginnering"--engineering seems to connote a certain amount of precision
  which, so far, seems not to be evident in the tools of our craft.

Just another one of my silly little jihads,
John Hascall

p.s. If you're all tired of my ramblings you could pitch in and get me
     a faster workstation and I wouldn't have so much "compile-wait-time"
     to think(?) up these things. :-)

pps. Oops, it's time to call my domestic engineer and have her put the
     sanitation engineer's package on the curb.  :-) x 2
     How come everyone wants to be a _________ Engineer, and no one wants
     to be a Doctor of ______________ or an Attorney at ___________??!