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From: gjphw@ihuxm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: new BYTE on C
Message-ID: <403@ihuxm.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Aug-83 18:21:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxm.403
Posted: Tue Aug  9 18:21:02 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Aug-83 19:11:54 EDT
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 30


   The recent comments about the latest BYTE magazine articles concerning
the C language are most interesting.  While I have not yet read this issue
of BYTE, and I am not a C freak, some of the references to the C language
can be understood from a historical perspective.

   C is best understood as an intermediate language, in the class with
BLISS, MACRO, and even some versions of the IBM H-level assembler.  It
does not remove the programmer as far from the hardware as a high level
language would (e.g., PL/1), but it also allows versatile data structures.
Some ambiguity lies around the criterion for the level of a programming
language, and further discussion of where C might fit on the language
line must wait for this definition.

   At the time that C was being developed, the computing world was in
the thralls of ALGOL.  In ALGOL, the language consists of logical
constructs, data structures, and mathematical operations.  I/O was
considered an implementation feature and left as a function call.  It
seems that the interpretation of what should be included in the definition
of a language and what is an auxiliary function has changed.  The net
result is as expressed by D. Strick, that there is no practical distinction
between the core language and its auxiliary functions.

   Having said too much, further discussion of this might be better
carried on in one of the computer newsgroups, where the heavies dwell!

                                          Patrick Wyant
                                          Bell Labs (Naperville, IL)
                                          *!ihuxm!gjphw