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From: gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Re: Modula-2, exceptions, C
Message-ID: <1410@proper.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Jun-84 21:22:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: proper.1410
Posted: Mon Jun 25 21:22:31 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Jun-84 04:48:48 EDT
References: <1986@mit-eddi.UUCP>, <11800018@iuvax.UUCP>, <918@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland, CA
Lines: 46
Keywords: C, Pascal, learning, syntax

> From: alex@sdcsvax.UUCP (Alex Pournelle)
> Organization: Alex Pournelle @ UC San Diego; freelance writer
> 
> C may be flexible, but it's also incomplete: ...
>      ... and an infuriating VAR parameter passing method.  Not to
> mention that PROCS are an add-on (using the void type), there is no
> initialization section (hand-in-hand with modules), and loony-bin
> syntax.

It seems you just don't like C:  these complaints are not reflections
of the languages weaknesses but your objection that it doesn't look
like Pascal.  To wit:

> Sure, you can cure the rather baroque syntax oddities with #DEFINEs, but
> then no one will be able to read your code ("Hey, mac, what are all
> these BEGINs and ENDs doing in your C program!").

Again, you  are just trying to make it look like Pascal.  It's not
Pascal.  It's C.

> C is also very hard to learn as a first (or even seventh!) language.

Anyone who knows Pascal [!] can learn C in two weeks.  I say this
not only from my own experience but of others' as well (in fact,
such a sequence is to be encouraged!).

> [C's] syntax and I/O lead to hair-tearing bugs that can take hours to find:
> e.g., leaving out the word "case" in front of the cases of a switch();
> leaving the file parameter out of an fprint(); ...

This is true, sometimes the catch-all `syntax error' does not tell
me all I would like to know about grammatical errors I've made, but
it has never been a serious problem for me.  As for the fprint [sic]
do you use lint?

>                                            ... the crazy dichotomy between
> zero- and one-based arrays (in the same language, mind you!).

I have no idea what this is refering to.  Arrays in C are always
zero-origin.

-- 

Gordon A. Moffett

{ hplabs!nsc, decvax!sun!amd, ihnp4!dual } !proper!gam