C as a Platonic pathology

[spinoza1111]

rogrammer collegiality of the early days has long been destroyed by a
strange loyalty to artifacts, especially abstractions, most notably
programming languages.

The pathology here (not of "trolling", but of male on male bullying)
derives ultimately from folk Platonism.

As most people are aware, Plato believed that Ideas exist in a
timeless realm of Forms, perfectly realized.

In the early days there was the struggle to get sensible answers from
limited machines.

But gradually, and by trial and error, programmers built tools to get
sensible answers and shared them with others.

However, the capitalist system of the 1960s noticed that a new species
of employee was talking back to its employers owing to full employment
in the programming field.

Therefore, the field was "rationalized". Computer languages, which had
originated in praxis, were reified and in many cases frozen, and a
fearsome array of headhunters sprang into existence basically to
control access to the field.

As a result, the struggle became to be "experts" in a "programming
language". This despite the fact that the expertise, unlike
traditional knowledge of the natural world and of culture, was the
knowledge, in many cases, of errors that had to be treated as truths,
such as "strings cannot contain Nuls" in C, and "in a or b, the
evaluation of b may not depend on the truth of a" in Pascal.

Plato (as his student Aristotle pointed out) had never assayed the
ontology of flawed ideas. The Idea of Goodness, the Idea of Justice,
the Idea of the State, are all very grand and noble. But what is the
Platonic Idea of the Fart?

Because a white-collar capitalist system deals in ideas reified to
commodities, it is a natural Platonism. Capitalism has none of
Aristotle's (nor St Thomas Aquinas') respect for the idiomatic, the
indigenous, and of course as a result, capitalism has despoiled the
earth.

While exalting flawed artifacts created by fallible humans for
specific purposes (in C's case, to program the DEC 10 and **** a snook
at Multics) to the status of Ideas, capitalism subordinates the
independent human spirit to that Idea, ignoring its flaws, and
treating discussion of its flaws with a savagery more like
Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic than like Socrates.

Let us now praise famous men, and their children after them. Kernighan
and Ritchie invented C. I met Kernighan. He's a nice guy.

But who realized that in using the preprocessor, there are three types
of macros, a fact extraneous to C as a set of rules? These rules are:

1. Symbols which name types such as structs should be defined on one
line
2. Symbols which define expressions need parentheses around the
definition
3. Symbols which define executable code should in all cases have curly
brackets around the definition
4. The formal parameters of macro symbols must appear in parentheses
in the macro body
5. When calling a macro the actual parameter should be in parentheses

An uncodified body of knowledge shores up the Platonic idea.

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111wrote:

That's wrong.
All external definitions result in executable code.
That includes external object definitions
which do not always require braces.

If you understood context, you'd figure out that "executable code"
means source executable code and not definitions. English isn't C, but
you should master reading skills.

My point was clear enough to the literate. If your symbol defines
executable statements terminated in semicolons, you MUST wrap the
definition part in curly brackets so that the macro call can be used
anywhere a C statement is valid. A series of n > 1 statements is not a
statement until it is bracketed. If you try to use a macro which
hasn't followed the rule and uses n>1 statements, as the then or else
clause of an if, or the loop body of a for or while, the statements
after the first will be treated differently from the first with no
error indication from the compiler.

The code may even "run" and the user may be all "happy".

This was Herb Schildt's problem. He can write, his enemies can neither
write nor read, therefore with the rage of subhuman Trogdolytes
without language, they attacked Schildt.

"External definitions" is a technical term,
defined in the C standard.

It is BARBARIC to replace English by some bureaucratic document.

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111wrote:


No.

For this c program:

/* BEGIN program.c */

int rc = 1;

int main(void)
{
     return rc - 1;

}

/* END program.c */

When the program is run,
the definition of rc results in executable code
which reserves memory for the object
and initializes rc with a value of 1,
prior to main being executed.

You're really confused. Again, I said that "executable code" means
sequences of C statements each terminating in a semicolon. You're
talking about what's usually known as "object code".

The Schildt and Kathy Sierra harassment incidents resulted from the
fact that programmers, ignorant of computer science and "tracked" into
programming (a field that actually requires verbal facility) by
society, tend to think of human language as a calculus like the
programming languages that so stunt their intellect.

These programmers normally have a Scholastic and primitive
understanding of the way in which language works, one linked with
religious fundamentalism and political conservatism.

Believing that words must have fixed referents and ignorant of de
Saussure's thesis, that signifiers aren't fixed and positive but mean
something in relation to other signifiers, they assert a mental
property right in one possible definition, this being the most
favorable to their cause.

It was clear from the start what I meant by "executable code". But if
you prefer:

C macros that define C expressions should place the definition in
parentheses. This guarantees that these expressions will never be
evaluated unexpectedly with respect to operator precedence.

C macros that define n>1 c statements, and arguably C macros that
define one statement, should be enclosed in braces. This guarantees
that these "compound statements" will nest appropriately when in the
scope of for, while, and if statements.

Gee. I know this and can express it clearly: yet I'm not a C expert.
The evidence here, in which our Expert, Heathfield, expresses things
in overly negative way (telling you you're wrong, especially if he
doesn't like you, without giving a solution) and in overspecialised
ways, that part of being an "expert" is keeping secrets.

 

[BGB / cr88192]

No.

For this c program:

/* BEGIN program.c */

int rc = 1;

int main(void)
{
return rc - 1;
}

/* END program.c */

When the program is run,
the definition of rc results in executable code
which reserves memory for the object
and initializes rc with a value of 1,
prior to main being executed.

not exactly...

it depends on the compiler, granted, but usually an initialized global is
defined in an initialized region of memory (typically referred to as
".data").

there is thus no need for this variable to be explicitly initialized, since
it will already hold its value once the loader is done loading everything
into memory...

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111said:



The secrets you mention are revealed in ISO/IEC 9899:199x (for various
values of x), in "The C Programming Language", 2nd edition, Kernighan
and Ritchie, 1988, and in a number of other good quality tutorial
texts. If you are trying to learn C without the benefit of such a

I am not trying to learn C. I am using it again after almost twenty
years. The sources above contradict each other, and what they say
about C can be invalidated at any time on target architectures (such
as IBM mainframes) not designed for C as well as using the
preprocessor.

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111said:



Then stop wasting our time.

If I'm wasting your time, why do you post responses to the "C
Adventure" thread? You've embarassed yourself by making a false charge
that I inserted a newline or Jacques allows // comments to continue,
trying to kill two birds with one stone, only to have to admit later
that usenet adds the line break.

I am re-learning C after a hiatus of 20 years in order to show that it
is horseshit.

A great programmer by no means loves his tools, despite the saw that a
poor work man blames his tools (logically the statements are
independent). Indeed, the fact that so many C programmers have
fashioned C-based tools and completely new languages using C (awk,
grep, yacc, lex, C++, Java, blarg, bleegh, etc) implies not that C is
great: quite the opposite.

And it would have been better for the United Nations to agree on a
runtime type safe virtual machine in 1970, and for this VM to be
extended, and supported in the hardware. It would have been better for
computer scientists, and not techies and their business managers, to
work on this effort.

 

[Tom St Denis]

I am re-learning C after a hiatus of 20 years in order to show that it
is horseshit.

To what end? Are we supposed to accept your analysis, throw out all
of our C code, and start writing in ADA or something?

Why should we care about any conclusions you [rightly or wrongly] come
up with?

A great programmer by no means loves his tools, despite the saw that a
poor work man blames his tools (logically the statements are
independent). Indeed, the fact that so many C programmers have
fashioned C-based tools and completely new languages using C (awk,
grep, yacc, lex, C++, Java, blarg, bleegh, etc) implies not that C is
great: quite the opposite.

A professional developer uses the right tool for the job. It's all in
your head that you think anyone who happens to do a lot of work in C
only works in C.

Out of your list btw, only yacc/lex have anything to do with C. grep/
awk are command line string tools, C++/Java are different programming
languages who have syntax borrowed from C but are not C related.

Tom

 

[spinoza1111]

To what end?  Are we supposed to accept your analysis, throw out all
of our C code, and start writing in ADA or something?

Yes. In fact, "throwing out C" in health care would result in the
inability of health care bureaucracies to bill and overbill.

Why should we care about any conclusions you [rightly or wrongly] come
up with?

I don't know. Who's we?

A professional developer uses the right tool for the job.  It's all in

A professional developer does NOT compare to this dreadful little
metaphor, of a plumber laden with tools showing buttcrack fixing
milady's sink. Most programmers in relation to the tools of production
have no ownership, are treated like dogshit, and do not have the
skills of professional plumbers in relation to the problems each face.
As I've said, most programmers I've known are Joe the Plumber (the
Sarah Palin fan) and in denial.

your head that you think anyone who happens to do a lot of work in C
only works in C.

Out of your list btw, only yacc/lex have anything to do with C.  grep/
awk are command line string tools, C++/Java are different programming
languages who have syntax borrowed from C but are not C related.

C++ was in fact written by a developer (Bjarne Stroustrup) who'd
successfully developed software in Denmark for two reasons. One was
that labor unions in Denmark participated in systems design. The other
was that Stroustrup used an OO language (Simula). After immigrating to
the United States, and going to work for Bell Labs, Stroustrup was
given C to work in. He apparently took one look...and used C to escape
from C.

Grep and awk were written mostly in C, although other versions may
have used assembler.

Java was a deliberate attempt to build a safe C with strings, and it
was written in C.

Learn some history, boyo.

 

[Keith Thompson]

spinoza1111 said:


Both wrong. I pointed out that *the code you posted* contained a
syntax error. This has been explained to you many times.

[...]

It's possible, even plausible, that the code did not contain that
syntax error when it left his client (presumably a web browser
if he's posting through Google Groups), and that the additional
newline was added by the server.

This is not a defense of his response to having the error pointed
out.

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111said:



Both wrong. I pointed out that *the code you posted* contained a
syntax error. This has been explained to you many times. I certainly
did not think for one moment that lcc-win32 incorrectly extends
single-line comments over multiple lines. (I do not know whether it
/correctly/ does so, by handling linesplicing correctly, but I have
no current reason to doubt it.) It is you who suggested so, by
claiming that the code you posted had been compiled under lcc-win32
without any diagnostic messages being produced.

You lied with malice and you were called on your behavior by me and
other posters. The code c compiled, formatting here adds linebreaks at
column 67, and you claimed falsely that I'd added the newline. This
was to be stupid, because you failed to remember this formatting, and
evil, because you're persisting after being told what happened.

Meanwhile, I went through every line of the code and reformatted it
manually last night on the ferry. You are as work-shy as Hitler
(Godwin converging validly in your case) and you prefer to sitting on
your fat butt destroying the reputation of better men.

However, you do have a detailed, if rather clerkish, if rather
Gradgrindish, knowledge of C and you are welcome, I have decided, to
remain. Please behave yourself in the future.

No, it doesn't, you oaf. Usenet is not a client.

Don't presume to correct me. You are ignorant and dishonest. If I were
your father I'd kick your ass.

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111said:
<snip>

Both wrong. I pointed out that *the code you posted* contained a
syntax error. This has been explained to you many times.

[...]

It's possible, even plausible, that the code did not contain that
syntax error when it left his client (presumably a web browser
if he's posting through Google Groups), and that the additional
newline was added by the server.

Check out the big brain on Brad! You a smart motherfucker, you know
that?

This is not a defense of his response to having the error pointed
out.

You little weasel.

 

[Tom St Denis]

Yes. In fact, "throwing out C" in health care would result in the
inability of health care bureaucracies to bill and overbill.

I thought most healthcare systems were written in real languages like
COBOL ... *rolls eyes*...

Why should we care about any conclusions you [rightly or wrongly] come
up with?

I don't know. Who's we?

Anyone reading this thread. As in, what anyones motivation for taking
you the slightest bit serious?

A professional developer does NOT compare to this dreadful little
metaphor, of a plumber laden with tools showing buttcrack fixing
milady's sink. Most programmers in relation to the tools of production
have no ownership, are treated like dogshit, and do not have the
skills of professional plumbers in relation to the problems each face.
As I've said, most programmers I've known are Joe the Plumber (the
Sarah Palin fan) and in denial.

First off, I'm Canadian, Richard [iirc] is British. Stop with the
american political metaphors. They don't work.

Second, you earlier said that the problem with C programmers is that
they stick steadfast with C because they're ignorant and indoctrinated
to not think out side the box. Then when I point out that real
developers use multiple tools/languages you chastize that as well.

Maybe the more likely scenario is you have no idea what you're talking
about?

C++ was in fact written by a developer (Bjarne Stroustrup) who'd
successfully developed software in Denmark for two reasons. One was
that labor unions in Denmark participated in systems design. The other
was that Stroustrup used an OO language (Simula). After immigrating to
the United States, and going to work for Bell Labs, Stroustrup was
given C to work in. He apparently took one look...and used C to escape
from C.

C++ looks like C but isn't based on C in that they are living parallel
lives. I mean C++ is as much C as Java or PHP is. They have similar
looking grammars but there are way more than enough differences to say
they're living different lives.

Grep and awk were written mostly in C, although other versions may
have used assembler.

I have no idea what your point is. grep may be an application written
in C, but it's not a language derived from C. I mean GNU bash is
written in C too. So is the Linux kernel. Are those C derived
languages too?

Java was a deliberate attempt to build a safe C with strings, and it
was written in C.

The standard Sun Java compiler is written in Java not C. The VM may
be written in C but that's beside the point.

And Java is a typesafe OOP language that barely resembles C on a very
superficial level. For example, they both have keywords like if, for,
switch, case, return, break, continue. But so does perl.

Are you saying perl is C with hash arrays/strings?

Learn some history, boyo.

Stop inventing history?

Tom

 

[James Kuyper]

C++ looks like C but isn't based on C in that they are living parallel
lives. I mean C++ is as much C as Java or PHP is. They have similar
looking grammars but there are way more than enough differences to say
they're living different lives.

Backwards compatibility with C was a major design goal for C++; read
"Design and Evolution of C++" to get a better appreciation of just how
strongly that goal influenced the design of C++. I don't know enough
about the development of Java to guess whether the designers cared about
compatibility with C, but looking at their product, it seems unlikely
that it was a high-priority goal.

Both the C and C++ standards committees have made a formal commitment to
avoiding gratuitous incompatibilities between the two languages.

I have no idea what your point is. grep may be an application written
in C, but it's not a language derived from C. I mean GNU bash is
written in C too. So is the Linux kernel. Are those C derived
languages too?


The standard Sun Java compiler is written in Java not C. The VM may
be written in C but that's beside the point.

And Java is a typesafe OOP language that barely resembles C on a very
superficial level. For example, they both have keywords like if, for,
switch, case, return, break, continue. But so does perl.

Are you saying perl is C with hash arrays/strings?

Awk, csh, perl and Java were all significantly influenced by C. Each of
them moved away from C in various directions, all of them moving father
away from C than C++ did, but there's still a clear, traceable influence
in each of those languages.

 

[spinoza1111]

spinoza1111said:







No, I didn't lie, with or without malice. As for "behaviour", you show
no sign of conforming to behavioural norms in this group, so it is
hypocritical of you to expect it of others. Note that the "behaviour"
in question was the pointing out of a diagnosable syntax error.

....and the accusation that I was lying or incompetent, an accusation
that was itself either lying or incompetent. You start this shit and
expect people to take it. Not any more.

It is your responsibility to know that, and to take it into account
when posting code.

No, that's not part of C. It was your collegial responsibility,
asshole, to point it out clearly and without malice if you knew it.
Instead, you started an unnecessary flame war because, asshole, I
defend myself.

No, I claimed truly that the code you posted had the newline there.
Keith Thompson has pointed out that it may have been the server that
added the newline, which is of course true, but it doesn't alter the
fact that the code that reached everyone else's servers had the
newline there.

It no longer has the newline "there" (learn to write properly) and
you're spamming and trolling because the union set of your
incompetence and malice was on display, and even your butt buddies
were embarassed by your conduct.

Just keep on making stuff up. You're good at that.

No, you make observations on people's competence grounding those
observations on facts that you conceal.

Well done. Now look up "indent" and save yourself a lot of future
work.

I happen to have a Visual Basic utility for boxing text. Unfortunately
it doesn't preserve indented formatting as appears in the
documentation header. However, using the Microsoft C++ code editor, it
took me all of three minutes "by Shrewsbury clock" to do the work.

You forgot to point out that I'm stupid for using boxed comments. I
shall have to do it for you. I am stupid for using boxed comments,
because according to the conventional wisdom, they are "hard to
maintain". Correction: they are hard to maintain when maintenance
programmers are work-shy. They are worth the work since they isolate
the English language and make it clear, even on a small screen, that
the user is in language and not code space. But, I'm stupid, by your
dim and faery lights, for using boxed comments.

I know you don't give two hoots about Godwin's Law. Nevertheless,
others do.

Mike Godwin, with whom I bantered on a panel at Princeton University
Press, might think his law might hide the connection between his
jejune "libertarianism" and Fascism, or at least what British marxist
Hobsbaum called the anarchy of the lower middle class. But as I have
observed, the Internet, being predominantly G8 country white male, is
overrun with shitbag little Hitlers like you, and I believe in calling
a spade a spade.

If you don't want to run the risk of being corrected, don't make
mistakes.

I didn't make a mistake. You did, and you compounded it with wild
accusations, like Adolf Hitler. Sieg Heil.

 

[spinoza1111]

I thought most healthcare systems were written in real languages like
COBOL ... *rolls eyes*...

Grabs crotch. No, Cobol was replaced by C and that was worse. Modern
structured Cobol is better than C because it keeps its programmers in
their place.

Why should we care about any conclusions you [rightly or wrongly] come
up with?

I don't know. Who's we?

Anyone reading this thread.  As in, what anyones motivation for taking
you the slightest bit serious?

They might for one thing learn how to write. What anyones motivation?

A professional developer does NOT compare to this dreadful little
metaphor, of a plumber laden with tools showing buttcrack fixing
milady's sink. Most programmers in relation to the tools of production
have no ownership, are treated like dogshit, and do not have the
skills of professional plumbers in relation to the problems each face.
As I've said, most programmers I've known are Joe the Plumber (the
Sarah Palin fan) and in denial.

First off, I'm Canadian, Richard [iirc] is British.  Stop with the
american political metaphors.  They don't work.

No? Actually, a lot of Canucks and Limeys are just as stupid,
politically, as Americans. Witness Harper's sabre rattling in the
Arctic. He himself won't have to fight Yanks and Russians in 50 below
zero weather, no, unemployed Canadians will be sent to die. He should
be working on a demilitarized arctic.

Second, you earlier said that the problem with C programmers is that
they stick steadfast with C because they're ignorant and indoctrinated
to not think out side the box.  Then when I point out that real
developers use multiple tools/languages you chastize that as well.

Yes, I've had it up to here with the lot of you. Some of you use one
language, others mess up in multiple languages, and I'm past caring.

Maybe the more likely scenario is you have no idea what you're talking
about?
No.

C++ looks like C but isn't based on C in that they are living parallel
lives.  I mean C++ is as much C as Java or PHP is.  They have similar
looking grammars but there are way more than enough differences to say
they're living different lives.


I have no idea what your point is.  grep may be an application written
in C, but it's not a language derived from C.  I mean GNU bash is
written in C too.  So is the Linux kernel.  Are those C derived
languages too?

No. The point is that C cannot do certain tasks and it makes more
sense to develop another language to do the job.

The standard Sun Java compiler is written in Java not C.  The VM may
be written in C but that's beside the point.

I am very familiar with compiler and language bootstrapping. That's
how we created new versions of the sl/1 compiler at Bell Northern
Research. My point was that as early as 1991 it was obvious at Sun
that neither C nor C++ were languages suited for competent developers,
C because it's an infantile disorder, C++ because it's mostly
compatible with C.

And Java is a typesafe OOP language that barely resembles C on a very
superficial level.  For example, they both have keywords like if, for,
switch, case, return, break, continue.  But so does perl.

Java uses C syntax because Kernighan and Ritchie STOLE the quality
ideas from PL/I as seen in the Multics project, and PL/I was stolen
from Algol and the Europeans by arrogant American developers. In so
doing, Java and C Sharp preserve one of Kernighan's and Ritchie's
worst errors, a for statement in which the conditional is overgeneral,
and evaluated each time. The Visual Basic for statement is better
since the limit of the loop is read-only after the For starts. As it
is, for in C, Java and C Sharp duplicates the function of a while with
a little extra syntatical sugar.

Are you saying perl is C with hash arrays/strings?

No, I am saying that people above a certain level of culture,
intelligence and taste take one look at C and say unto themselves,
yuck, I can do better than that.

Stop inventing history?

I lived it. I rode a tank in the general's ranks. I started out in
pure machine language before you were born, kid. What was your first
language, kid? Trash 80 Basic in the 1980s? I wrote my first program
in Jan 1970 and was privileged to banter with some of the heavy
hitters in the old days, including Nash, Kernighan, and Whitfield
Diffie.

I nearly got thrown out of the Computer Museum in Mountain View
because I said they were wasting their time rebuilding the IBM 1401
when they could be writing an encyclopedia of simulators and virtual
reality old computers; I observed that the technology of the 1401, on
which I started out, is no longer environmentally safe and one of the
creepy old hardware types that now run the place looked at me funny.

You see, cyberspaces are used by low-dominance men to construct a sort
of laager to keep out sex and race, and preventing sexual and racial
considerations from having to be dealt-with. The Computer Museum,
which started out as a multicultural and non-gendered space, has been
turned into a laager overdedicated to rebuilding a minor and not very
innovative machine that had its share of design flaws ("can't add,
doesn't try": a seven bit word with a dedicated word mark: etc.).

I programmed the 1401 up the ass and had a dream about it last night,
but not for once did I manifest that barbarous loyalty to artifacts
and reified ideas that to me is the mark of the developer, that will
never rise above a plateau of competence, and who will be driving a
cab by the time he's forty.

I've written about software history for the IEEE journal in that
discipline (see the spring/summer issue of 1999), sonny boy, so shove
it.

 

[Nick Keighley]

I am re-learning C after a hiatus of 20 years in order to show that it
is horseshit.

To what end?  Are we supposed to accept your analysis, throw out all
of our C code, and start writing in ADA or something?

Why should we care about any conclusions you [rightly or wrongly] come
up with?

A great programmer by no means loves his tools,

respects then? I appreciate good tools for what they can do for me.


I implies it is great for building tools

A professional developer uses the right tool for the job.  It's all in
your head that you think anyone who happens to do a lot of work in C
only works in C.

Out of your list btw, only yacc/lex have anything to do with C.  grep/
awk are command line string tools,

awk is a full blown programming language. You don't have to use it
from
the command line.

C++/Java are different programming
languages who have syntax borrowed from C but are not C related.

I think he's saying they were implemented in C. Which is rather
a counter argument to his "C is useless" argument.

 

[Nick Keighley]

you dangerously underestimate bureaucracies. They bombed Cambodia
whilst the computers all said they wern't. Not a line of C in sight.

C++ looks like C but isn't based on C in that they are living parallel
lives.  

C++ is based on C and it is silly to pretend otherwise

The standard Sun Java compiler is written in Java not C.  The VM may
be written in C but that's beside the point.

And Java is a typesafe OOP language that barely resembles C on a very
superficial level.  For example, they both have keywords like if, for,
switch, case, return, break, continue.  But so does perl.

Are you saying perl is C with hash arrays/strings?


Stop inventing history?

both of you. Perl is heavily influenced by C.

But let's stick to Java.

operators: ++ -- (pre and postfix - why don't I just stop now?)
+ / % (!) + - << >> (!) < > <= >= == (!) != & | ^ && || ?: =
+= -= *= /= %= &= ^= |= <<= >>=

ok a couple of weird ones >>>, >>>=, instanceof

you can look me in the eye and claim a language with &&, >>= and ==
isn't enourmously influenced by C?

It uses curly brackets, /* comments

half the key words are the same as C (and quite a few more
are the same as C++)

 

[Tom St Denis]

Grabs crotch. No, Cobol was replaced by C and that was worse. Modern
structured Cobol is better than C because it keeps its programmers in
their place.

I'd say the industry based on C and C++ is a lot larger [by a
ridiculous amount] then COBOL, or even Java.

They might for one thing learn how to write. What anyones motivation?

OH MY GOD, I missed a word. Stop the presses.

No? Actually, a lot of Canucks and Limeys are just as stupid,
politically, as Americans. Witness Harper's sabre rattling in the
Arctic. He himself won't have to fight Yanks and Russians in 50 below
zero weather, no, unemployed Canadians will be sent to die. He should
be working on a demilitarized arctic.

This has what to do with clc? I don't listen to Harper for
programming/development ideas either. Stop trying to wedge your "omg
I'm so old I have to rant about everything" arguments into a clc
thread.

Next you're gonna talk about "the good old days" when the black
programmers sat at the back of the lab right?

Yes, I've had it up to here with the lot of you. Some of you use one
language, others mess up in multiple languages, and I'm past caring.

So you admit to being a flagrant hypocrite? Gotcha. So I'm stupid if
I program in multiple languages AND I'm stupid if I program in only
one language...

No. The point is that C cannot do certain tasks and it makes more
sense to develop another language to do the job.

Yes, we agree. But the converse is also true. There are things for
which ANY language is not well suited. Only an idiot sticks to one
language all the time through personal preference.

I am very familiar with compiler and language bootstrapping. That's
how we created new versions of the sl/1 compiler at Bell Northern
Research. My point was that as early as 1991 it was obvious at Sun
that neither C nor C++ were languages suited for competent developers,
C because it's an infantile disorder, C++ because it's mostly
compatible with C.

Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that the Java compiler is written
in Java, not C. Java and it's hosted VM platform solve a DIFFERENT
set of problems than C and C++. Mostly because C is rarely hosted
with a VM.

You worked at BNR too? Rock on. Shame how Nortel seemed to torpedo
it eh? Which lab did you work in?

Java uses C syntax because Kernighan and Ritchie STOLE the quality

Whoa whoa whoa. Wait. Java uses C syntax because K&R stole it from
elsewhere? Or did they choose the C syntax as a basis because it was
so ridiculously widespread and well understood by competent [re: not
you] developers?

No, I am saying that people above a certain level of culture,
intelligence and taste take one look at C and say unto themselves,
yuck, I can do better than that.

Ok, so you're hanging out in clc because.... [complete the sentence
please.]

I lived it. I rode a tank in the general's ranks. I started out in
pure machine language before you were born, kid. What was your first
language, kid? Trash 80 Basic in the 1980s? I wrote my first program
in Jan 1970 and was privileged to banter with some of the heavy
hitters in the old days, including Nash, Kernighan, and Whitfield
Diffie.

Oh, now you know Diffie... did you happen to give him the idea for DH
too? Do you just read wikipedia and throw names out?

For the 3rd time, John Nash is NOT a famous developer in any right.
So bringing him up here is irrelevant. I've met Diffie as well [my
first crypto conference actually], I've also met a slew of other
famous cryptographers. Big deal. Their brilliance doesn't rub off on
you just because you met them. It doesn't mean anything.

<snip rest of irrelevant crap>

Tom

 

[spinoza1111]

Grabs crotch. No, Cobol was replaced by C and that was worse. Modern
structured Cobol is better than C because it keeps its programmers in
their place.

I'd say the industry based on C and C++ is a lot larger [by a
ridiculous amount] then COBOL, or even Java.

They might for one thing learn how to write. What anyones motivation?

OH MY GOD, I missed a word.  Stop the presses.

You also transformed "than" into "then". Yes, stop the presses.

This has what to do with clc?  I don't listen to Harper for
programming/development ideas either.  Stop trying to wedge your "omg
I'm so old I have to rant about everything" arguments into a clc
thread.

Everything is related, sonny boy.

Next you're gonna talk about "the good old days" when the black
programmers sat at the back of the lab right?

**** you, asshole. The real racists are white programmers who use
technology as a white laager to avoid confronting their white skin
privilege and their gender issues.

So you admit to being a flagrant hypocrite?  Gotcha.  So I'm stupid if
I program in multiple languages AND I'm stupid if I program in only
one language...


Yes, we agree. But the converse is also true.  There are things for
which ANY language is not well suited.  Only an idiot sticks to one
language all the time through personal preference.



Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that the Java compiler is written
in Java, not C.  Java and it's hosted VM platform solve a DIFFERENT
set of problems than C and C++.  Mostly because C is rarely hosted
with a VM.

You worked at BNR too?  Rock on.  Shame how Nortel seemed to torpedo
it eh?  Which lab did you work in?

Mountain View.

Java uses C syntax because Kernighan and Ritchie STOLE the quality

Whoa whoa whoa.  Wait.  Java uses C syntax because K&R stole it from
elsewhere?  Or did they choose the C syntax as a basis because it was
so ridiculously widespread and well understood by competent [re: not
you] developers?

Read: Americans.

No, I am saying that people above a certain level of culture,
intelligence and taste take one look at C and say unto themselves,
yuck, I can do better than that.

Ok, so you're hanging out in clc because.... [complete the sentence
please.]

In order to relearn enough about C to destroy the illusion that it is
still viable for new development.

Oh, now you know Diffie... did you happen to give him the idea for DH
too?  Do you just read wikipedia and throw names out?

He was a coworker at Bell Northern Research.

For the 3rd time, John Nash is NOT a famous developer in any right.
So bringing him up here is irrelevant.  I've met Diffie as well [my
first crypto conference actually], I've also met a slew of other
famous cryptographers.  Big deal.  Their brilliance doesn't rub off on
you just because you met them.  It doesn't mean anything.

No, it doesn't. However, they were all characterised by a lack of
willingness to shore up their own shaky self-image by tearing down
other people.

 

[Tom St Denis]

<snip everything that doesn't have anything to do with clc>

Whoa. Empty post now... hmm.

Can you rephrase your comments, questions, and ideas in terms of
elements of the C language?

Tom