Xref: utzoo comp.software-eng:2974 comp.lang.c:26422 comp.lang.misc:4294 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!hub!eiffel!bertrand From: bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language Message-ID: <259@eiffel.UUCP> Date: 1 Mar 90 03:33:27 GMT References: <6960@internal.Apple.COM> Organization: Interactive Software Engineering, Santa Barbara CA Lines: 22 From by melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger): > Personally, it's the little things like this that make me > believe that everyone should ABANDON C and move on to C++(two others being > function prototyping and strong type checking). Waddya think? Wither C? How can the words ``strong type checking'' be applied to a language in which any variable may be cast to any type? In which you declare the type of a generic list element to be ``pointer to characters''? C++ only magnifies the problems of C, and it does not even have the excuses that can be invoked in the case of a 20-year old design such as C. All the flaws of the older language are still there; amount countless examples, the break and switch instructions, which were purportedly responsible for the AT&T breakdown (and started this whole discussion) are still there exactly as in C. The bug would have occurred identically. Then there are new complexities and major new trouble spots - such as default static binding, which means the guarantee that the *incorrect* version of an operation will be applied! -- Bertrand Meyer bertrand@eiffel.com