Xref: utzoo comp.software-eng:3037 comp.lang.c:26532 comp.lang.misc:4327 Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.misc Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language Message-ID: <1990Mar4.005122.14121@utzoo.uucp> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: <6960@internal.Apple.COM> <259@eiffel.UUCP> <1990Mar1.172526.28683@utzoo.uucp> <4397@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> Date: Sun, 4 Mar 90 00:51:22 GMT In article <4397@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> feg@clyde.ATT.COM writes: >> ([C/C++] remain eminently usable languages for people who know what >> they're doing, although incompetents and novices should definitely >> avoid them. Alas, all too many of the "real programs" in the world are >> written by incompetents and novices...) > >While I agree 100% with everything you said in this article in >support of the modern C language, aren't you being a little >contradictory in your postscript? Unless you anticipated >Dennis Ritchie, one day you too were a novice in C. Fortunately >you didn't avoid it. (;-)) I should have drawn slightly finer distinctions here. Programming novices should avoid C, period. Experienced programmers who are C novices should use C cautiously and avoid using it for production software, if possible, until they're used to it. Incompetents should go somewhere where their lack of talent will not be noticed, e.g. the local DoD contractor. :-) (It's no accident that one big push for languages that try to legislate competence comes from DoD...) Yeah, I was a C novice once. I'm glad that all the code I wrote then is dead and buried. -- MSDOS, abbrev: Maybe SomeDay | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology an Operating System. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu