Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!shakti!mickey
From: mickey@ncst.ernet.in (R Chandrasekar)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: C's sins of commission (was: (pssst...fortran?))
Keywords: C, safety, pointer
Message-ID: <960@shakti.ncst.ernet.in>
Date: 27 Sep 90 09:56:09 GMT
References: <1990Sep14.160429.2732@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> <9009141908.AA24760@world.std.com> <1990Sep14.212806.8131@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> <3114.26f57247@cc.helsinki.fi>
Reply-To: mickey@shakti (R Chandrasekar)
Organization: National Centre for Software Technology, Bombay, INDIA
Lines: 35

In article <3114.26f57247@cc.helsinki.fi> pirinen@cc.helsinki.fi writes:

>Where does this idea of C-hackers come from, that only novices need
>safety?  I'm no novice (10 years of programming), and I want all the
>safety I can get.  I'm sick and tired of debugging for hours to find
>simple errors that could have been caught at the expense of a few
>seconds of the compiler's time.  Programmers are not machines, even good
>programmers make simple mistakes.

I agree completely. In fact, it is the more experienced programmers
who need to be 'protected' -- they are more likely to be writing
bigger applications, and many of them might be over-confident
with their prowess with a programming language.

My complaint is not neccessarily with C - it is with any language
which provides 'flexible' ways to goof.

C-philes say that a variety of syntactic problems could be trapped
with tools such as lint. But hardly anyone uses lint ot lint-like
programs (usual comments:"lint gives too many vague messages" etc
etc).

The smart programmer is one who uses safe programming practices,
perhaps a layer of code over the basic language, to achieve what is
required.

>Pekka P. Pirinen   University of Helsinki
>pirinen@cc.helsinki.fi  pirinen@finuh.bitnet  ..!mcvax!cc.helsinki.fi!pirinen

 -- Chandrasekar
______________________________________________________________________
R Chandrasekar, National Centre for Software Technology, 
Gulmohar Cross Rd No. 9, Juhu, Bombay 400 049,INDIA
E-mail : mickey@ncst.ernet.in  OR  mickey@ncst.in
______________________________________________________________________