"Criticism of the C programming language ??????"

R

Richard Bos

Charlie Gordon said:
ITYM 64 bit integers ?

Don't you know? It's all the same. Any other kind of integer than int is
an abomination unto McLean, and should never be used lest it scare the
compiler.

Richard
 
C

Charlie Gordon

Mark McIntyre said:
Again you demonstrate just why you annoy some of the regulars so much. It
seems that you /always/ post a rude or sarcastic final word, insulting
someone.

No insult here: Jacob is using a French onomatopy for weeping. He did not
mean to express any drug related slur. He could certainly confirm this and
apologize accordingly. It is very difficult to express irony in a foreign
language, tragic misunderstandings are common place. I would advise Jacob
to refrain from this.
 
J

jacob navia

Charlie said:
No insult here: Jacob is using a French onomatopy for weeping. He did not
mean to express any drug related slur. He could certainly confirm this and
apologize accordingly. It is very difficult to express irony in a foreign
language, tragic misunderstandings are common place. I would advise Jacob
to refrain from this.

No cocaine intended!
Long ago I read American comics and when some character
weeps, they write "sniff". But that was in the
forgotten years of my youth, and now "sniff" means
sniffing coke or whatever.
 
S

santosh

No cocaine intended!
Long ago I read American comics and when some character
weeps, they write "sniff". But that was in the
forgotten years of my youth, and now "sniff" means
sniffing coke or whatever.

Your intended meaning was the one I understood too.
 
R

Richard Heathfield

Charlie Gordon said:
No insult here:

You appear to have missed the sarcasm to which Mark McIntyre was referring.

But I have long since given up on any sensible response from Mr Navia - he
has accused me of nonsense and lying so many times now that I have long
since forgotten which particular misunderstandings of C led him to make
such claims, and I doubt very much whether he will ever have the courtesy
to make amends for all of the many times when he has allowed his arrogance
to blind him to his ignorance and has posted insults instead of reasoning.
If you think I'm "derogatory" about Mr Navia, look long and hard at his
posting history, and then please just get off my back.
 
J

James Kuyper

Richard said:
Charlie Gordon said:
"Malcolm McLean" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de
news: (e-mail address removed)...

ITYM 64 bit integers ?

Whichever he means, he doesn't need to campaign. All he has to do is use
any of the vast[1] number of implementations whose designers agree with
him that 64 bit int[eger]s are the way forward. C itself does not mandate ....
[1] For a certain value of "vast".

I think that the required value for 'vast' is vastly different, if he's
referring to ints rather than integers.
 
S

santosh

James Kuyper said:
Richard said:
Charlie Gordon said:
"Malcolm McLean" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message
de news: (e-mail address removed)...

the campaign for 64 bit ints.
ITYM 64 bit integers ?

Whichever he means, he doesn't need to campaign. All he has to do is
use any of the vast[1] number of implementations whose designers
agree with him that 64 bit int[eger]s are the way forward. C itself
does not mandate ...
[1] For a certain value of "vast".

I think that the required value for 'vast' is vastly different, if
he's referring to ints rather than integers.

Malcolm has previously expressed his disapproval of multiple integer
types. After all size_t, his personal devil, is an integer too. He
favours near universal use of the int type, wherever an integer is
needed (except for the case of char), which is why he wants int to be
64-bits: to iron out (to an extent), the inconveniences entailed by
this decision.

I also get the feeling that he similarly strongly favours signed types
over unsigned types, even in situations that literally beg for the use
of the latter.

His is an eccentric opinion and though some of his rationale for it are
reasonable, the overall argument is not, IMO.
 
R

Richard Heathfield

James Kuyper said:
Richard said:
Charlie Gordon said:
"Malcolm McLean" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de
news: (e-mail address removed)...

the campaign for 64 bit ints.
ITYM 64 bit integers ?

Whichever he means, he doesn't need to campaign. All he has to do is use
any of the vast[1] number of implementations whose designers agree with
him that 64 bit int[eger]s are the way forward. C itself does not
mandate ...
[1] For a certain value of "vast".

I think that the required value for 'vast' is vastly different, if he's
referring to ints rather than integers.

I don't think Malcolm accepts that there is any distinction. :)
 
R

Richard

No. "Sniff" in conversation is always accompanied with a downtown of the
mouth and an upset look. It has one meaning in a context like this.
Your intended meaning was the one I understood too.

It's the one anyone whose first language is English would understand
too. Mark was simply stirring the sludge while demonstrating his
"regulars" fixation yet again (his word not mine).
 
K

Keith Thompson

Charlie said:
No insult here: Jacob is using a French onomatopy for weeping. He did not
mean to express any drug related slur. He could certainly confirm this and
apologize accordingly. It is very difficult to express irony in a foreign
language, tragic misunderstandings are common place. I would advise Jacob
to refrain from this.

Huh?

I read jacob's "sniff!" exactly has he intended it, as a sarcastic
indication of weeping, and I see absolutely nothing specifically French
about it. It would never occur to me that it was related to drug use
and jacob has no need to apologize on those grounds.

As usual, I found jacob's attempt at sarcasm tedious and annoying. He
has some actual ideas, and some subset of them are both valid and
topical. He could improve the tone of this newsgroup significantly if
he would drop his attempts at sarcasm (whether he feels they're provoked
or not) and stick to discussing technical issues.

jacob: You are not good at sarcasm. This is honestly meant as
constructive criticism, not as a personal insult. I don't expect you to
accept it, but hope springs eternal.
 
C

Charlie Gordon

Keith Thompson said:
Huh?

I read jacob's "sniff!" exactly has he intended it, as a sarcastic
indication of weeping, and I see absolutely nothing specifically French
about it. It would never occur to me that it was related to drug use and
jacob has no need to apologize on those grounds.

As usual, I found jacob's attempt at sarcasm tedious and annoying. He has
some actual ideas, and some subset of them are both valid and topical. He
could improve the tone of this newsgroup significantly if he would drop
his attempts at sarcasm (whether he feels they're provoked or not) and
stick to discussing technical issues.

jacob: You are not good at sarcasm. This is honestly meant as
constructive criticism, not as a personal insult. I don't expect you to
accept it, but hope springs eternal.

I agree completely.

Regarding sniff, I did not imply it was specific to French, but I was quite
sure Jacob got it from the French version of a famous american comic strip.
I was not aware that it was untranslated. It may even have been spelled as
'snif!' back then.

As a matter of fact, the word is used in French slang with the sole drug
related meaning: sniffer de la coke, sniffer de la colle... The original
French word is somewhat similar (renifler) but does not have the same
connotations anymore.
 
P

Peter Nilsson

santosh said:
...Malcolm has previously expressed his disapproval of
multiple integer types. After all size_t, his personal
devil, is an integer too. He favours near universal use
of the int type, wherever an integer is needed (except
for the case of char), ...

I also get the feeling that he similarly strongly favours
signed types over unsigned types, even in situations that
literally beg for the use of the latter.

His is an eccentric opinion...

No, just a very old one. You've described primordial C to a
tee.
 
C

Charlie Gordon

Richard Heathfield said:
Charlie Gordon said:



Partly true - you rightly allowed yourself a reasonable time. But you did
agree to correct *all* of his mistakes (although obviously we can safely
exclude those that are corrected by others - no point in doubling up).

And yet you have not done so.

Too much traffic, a lot of which has little to do with C.
This is hardly your fault. It's practically impossible for any one person
to keep up with the volume.


I'm not sure that I agree that my comments are derogatory. Some, sure, out
of sheer exasperation - but mostly I seem to attract flak for correcting
his errors. The reason for my offer was simply to demonstrate that
/anyone/ - even you - would attract this flak if they corrected as many of
his errors as I have done in the past.

I think you are mistaken: you attract flak not because of the number of
corrections you feel the need to make, but because of the tone you use and
the extra judgmental remarks you keep adding. Your typical "corrections"
too many times contain derogatory tone and allusions for Jacob Navia, such
as:

"I see no value in attempting to educate you"
"you appear to be incapable of holding a rational debate"
"I cannot take seriously the views on C of a man who, it is evident from his
own postings, knows so little about the language"
"You need to learn to tell right from wrong. For the past few years, you
appear to have got them mixed up with monotonous regularity"
"I've explained this before in clc, but Mr Navia obviously can't remember
that far back..."
"I know from experience that Mr Navia rarely if ever bothers to listen to
good advice"
"you are wrong - as usual"
"are all Frenchmen so wilfully ignorant ..."

I agree that Jacob makes mistakes, and gets carried away with baseless
allusions and misused irony, but both of you need to cool down and use
better manners for this group's sake.
 
R

Richard Heathfield

Charlie Gordon said:

I think you are mistaken: you attract flak not because of the number of
corrections you feel the need to make,

Did you feel the need to reply in that way? Or did you just reply in that
way? It is possible to reply in a particular way without "feeling a need",
is it not?
but because of the tone you use

Check out Jacob Navia's tone some time - the tone he uses when he's wrong
but thinks he's right (which is most of the time).
and the extra judgmental remarks you keep adding.

It didn't start out that way - and by the way, they're not intended to be
judgemental. All the behaviour they describe can be corrected, if Mr Navia
so chooses.
Your typical "corrections"
too many times contain derogatory tone and allusions for Jacob Navia,

Let's see, shall we?
such as:

"I see no value in attempting to educate you"

What is Jacob Navia's learning percentage? How much of what we teach him
about C does he actually take in and absorb and act upon? I'm not saying
it's zero, but I would suspect it's not far above it. Therefore, I see no
value in attempting to educate him. This is not an allusion. It is not
even derogatory. It is simply a statement of fact (which, I might add, is
taken out of context - it is almost certainly the case that I said the
above in a context such as "but in case anyone else was misled by your
claim, I would point out the fact that..." or something like that).

"you appear to be incapable of holding a rational debate"

Again, this appears to me to be true. Have you any counter-examples?

"I cannot take seriously the views on C of a man who, it is evident from
his own postings, knows so little about the language"

Again, this appears to me to be true. Charlie, he's been getting this stuff
wrong for *years*.
"You need to learn to tell right from wrong. For the past few years, you
appear to have got them mixed up with monotonous regularity"

Again, this appears to me to be true. He seems to have things exactly the
wrong way round on so many issues. Have you any counter-examples?
"I've explained this before in clc, but Mr Navia obviously can't remember
that far back..."

If he could, he'd have got it right.
"I know from experience that Mr Navia rarely if ever bothers to listen to
good advice"

Again, absolutely true.
"you are wrong - as usual"

And again.
"are all Frenchmen so wilfully ignorant ..."

Context: "Just out of curiosity: are all Frenchmen so wilfully ignorant as
to drop honorifics from names (as you habitually do), or is it just you
giving your countrymen a bad name?" It seems to me to be a fair question.
I agree that Jacob makes mistakes, and gets carried away with baseless
allusions and misused irony,

Lots and lots of mistakes, *despite continued corrections*. Did you mean
"baseless allegations"? Because that's certainly the case. As for his
"irony", it is beyond parody.
but both of you need to cool down and use
better manners for this group's sake.

I think you need to get off my back about this, Charlie. If you want to
criticise anyone about manners, you're looking in the wrong direction.
 
D

David Thompson

Another one, which you will realise if you use Lisp, is that in C there are
too many ways to express the same thing - arrays of arrays of structures
with arrays, or lists of list of lists. Lisp handles it fine by simply
having one "list" structure. In C you are constantly checking - is it a
pointer or a nested array, where is the size member ?

Classic LISP yes, but even there you have 'raw' pairs (conses); for
example I (vaguely) remember some implementation I used did binding
context as list of pairs. Which could look misleading, since the
bindings of many (most?) variables would be lists, and dotting to a
list gives you something that looks like a different list.

Over time more structures were added. Standardized 'Common' Lisp has
arrays including vectors, bitvectors, and (character) strings; and
structs (with inheritance); and hashtables; as well as composites that
are primarily defined and used by 'the system' but are more or less
accessible to user code such as package/obarray, readtable,
metaclasses, I/O pathnames and streams.

- formerly david.thompson1 || achar(64) || worldnet.att.net
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
473,744
Messages
2,569,484
Members
44,903
Latest member
orderPeak8CBDGummies

Latest Threads

Top