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From: amos@instable.UUCP (Amos Shapir)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Portable C vs Efficient C or "Cost of Portability"
Message-ID: <750@instable.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Apr-87 06:38:36 EST
Article-I.D.: instable.750
Posted: Sun Apr 19 06:38:36 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 20:38:13 EST
References: <213@pyuxe.UUCP> <636@edge.UUCP> <1316@frog.UUCP> <658@edge.UUCP>
Reply-To: amos%nsta@nsc.com (Amos Shapir)
Distribution: world
Organization: National Semiconductor (Israel) Ltd. Home of the 32532
Lines: 21
Summary: C is too good for its own good
Hdate: 20 Nisan 5747


Most of  the arguments on  this group stem  from the fact  that C
became too good for its own good. C started as not much more than
a  structured-programming  assembly  macros (something  like  the
800-line 'foogol'  compiler posted to net.sources  not long ago).
It was meant to be a quick & dirty front end to assembly. Then it
was discovered  that most  of the dirty  tricks had  parallels on
other architectures, and C became portable. K&R did a magnificent
job of  describing what is supposed  to be portable, and  what is
left quick & dirty.

However, since C was not meant  to be initially portable, many of
the checks and guards of high level languages were left out. That
made  it a  nice language  to program  in. Which  made it  widely
distributed. Which caused much portable  code to be written in it
- exactly  the type of  programming HLL's checks and  guards were
invented for...
-- 
	Amos Shapir
National Semiconductor (Israel)
6 Maskit st. P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel  Tel. (972)52-522261
amos%nsta@nsc.com {hplabs,pyramid,sun,decwrl} 34.48'E 32.10'N