Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: ambiguous ?
Message-ID: <14108@lanl.gov>
Date: 23 Oct 89 04:53:08 GMT
References: <11369@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 27

From article <11369@smoke.BRL.MIL>, by gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn):
> [...]
> You should of course draw your own conclusions, even if they're
> based on faulty evidence or reasoning, but there is no need to rant
> about C in this newgroup.  Do that in some comparative programming
> languages newsgroup instead.

Very well done.  This is exactly the _REAL_ reason that C is spreading
so quickly.  You _assert_ that C is powerful, portable, easy to use,
easy to learn, etc..  Anyone who disagrees is diverted to some other
forum (together with the claim that his objections are "faulty evidence
or reasoning").  The main (almost exclusive) reason C spreads to some
sites is that the _management_ begins to believe all the hype and
decides to _require_ conversion.

Well, I think this is exactly the right forum for discussion about the
failings of C just as it's the right forum for any other discussion of
the language.  Not only is this one of the places where unfounded
assertions of C's capabilities are abundant, but this is also the
place where the real truth, in the form of constant bickering and
disagreement about the meaning of C, is to be found.  If C were
so well designed, there wouldn't be such a constant raft of questions
and discussions about the meaning of various features.  Even the
so-called "gurus" have disagreements about the nature of presumably
well-defined parts of the language.  Finally, it is a forum which
is read by quite a large number of novice programmers who deserve
better than to see only one side of the issue.