Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: C's sins of commission (was: (pssst...fortran?))
Message-ID: <63722@lanl.gov>
Date: 21 Sep 90 17:39:13 GMT
References: <michels.653892230@menaik>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 58

From article <michels.653892230@menaik>, by michels@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Michels):
> [...]
> I like C because it alows me to do things I want and am paid to do
> in nice and easy way.  [...]

That's exactly why I don't like C.  It doesn't let me do anything I
find useful without first droping myself to my knees and scraping
around on the implementation level of a computer model (which doesn't
even match the _real_ machine that I'm on).

> [...]                                       Why should I be forced
> to write my programs in a cryptic form just because someone else
> has a different opinion.

Hear, Hear!!  I like a programming language to allow me to say what I
mean - not to have to convert my algorithm into something cryptic.
However, C forces me to encrypt my programs - I can't use arrays, I
have to encrypt them as pointers; I can't use dynamic memory, I have
to encrypt them as pointers; I can't use mapping (run-time equivalence),
I have to encrypt them as pointers; etc....  And that's just the problem
with _pointers_ - C promotes other difficulties as well.  And, with as
many _different_ things all being encrypted as pointers, how can I hope
to easily decipher someone else's code to determine which of these
concepts he intends his variables to represent?

> [...]
> I would like to se Jim Giles to write that sort of code in any
> of the solutions that he proposed :-).

I can't see that it could be anything but easier.  Being able to say
what you _mean_ - and not have to squash down into the confines of
an inadequate language model can only be an improvement.

> [...]
> My view on this subject is that if someone wants to drive TOYOTA let them
> but if I want to build a FERRARI I should be allowed as well.

Of course, the proper automobile analogy for C is a '72 Jeep CJ (with the
wrong transmission).  It's clunky and uncomfortable.  It does poorly on
the road (that is, as a machine independent portable language).  It has
pretenses of being a all terrain verhicle, but it only does well on its
home turf - byte addressed, 32-bit word, CISC architectures with VAX style
structure.

> [...]
> In any futaristic languages I would like to see the same things that
> I like about C. [...]

And, I don't want to see anything I don't like about C.
(By the way, it's "futuristic".  I spell badly too, but if I
don't complain someone else will. :-)

> [...]             I want to be able to write my programs that do the job
> and are short and easy to understand.  [...]

Well, at least we agree about something.

J. Giles