the 'standard' is so strange

[Kenny McCormack]

Nick Keighley <[email protected]> screwed up again
thusly:
....

the C standard is a model of clarity. And Fowler is over rated.

In much the same way that Bridgit Bardot (in her prime) was a model of
ugliness. I.e., to get the concept, you conceive of the exact opposite
of the "model".

 

[Dik T. Winter]

> Bridgit Bardot (in her prime)

Who is that?

 

[Joachim Schmitz]

Who is that?

A typo. Actually three, her firstname is Brigitte

 

[CBFalconer]

A typo. Actually three, her firstname is Brigitte

I think we should offer sympathy to Mr Winter.

 

[Joachim Schmitz]

I think we should offer sympathy to Mr Winter.

For being to young to have seen BB in her prime? Nah...

Bye, Jojo

 

[Nick Keighley]

C is indeed less well-defined than most other languages.

are you sure about this? Might it be that C is better at
documenting its dark corners?

I've seen it argued[1] that the Ada standard has more open issues than
the C standard (this was some time ago so the holes may have been
plugged now).

[1] I can't remember exactly where something like "secure C"
by Hatton (I couldn't find it by google). Ah! Wikipedia for "Hatton".
"Safer C" by Les Hatton

[beware: link is broken]
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Safer-High-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227092931&sr=8-1

 The reason is
that C evolved and branched on its own long before the standards bodies
got their hands on it, and different implementors had wildly different
ideas about what different things meant.  As a result, ANSI (and thus
ISO) was reduced to trying to document the areas where most or all of
them agreed and leaving the areas of disagreement undefined.

Also, C was always intended to be as efficient as possible, and what
behavior is most efficient on different systems varies.  Finally, one of
C's greatest strengths is the ability to write both portable code (such
as cross-platform applications) and unportable code (such as device
drivers) in the same language; the way this is done is by allowing
"undefined" and "implementation-defined" behavior, which can be avoided
by anyone trying to write portable code but embraced by those who don't
care about portability.

<snip>

 

[Dik T. Winter]

>
> For being to young to have seen BB in her prime? Nah...

Tsk. At least she was refreshing after DD. But since her retirement some
35 years ago she has become politically involved, although not exactly correct.

 

[Joachim Schmitz]

Tsk. At least she was refreshing after DD.

Yes, I'm old enough to decipher that )

But since her retirement
some 35 years ago she has become politically involved, although not
exactly correct.

Partly true indeed... (her fight against seal hunting was OK, IMHO)

Bye, Jojo