[comp.lang.c] Was Einstein wrong after all?

maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) (10/20/89)

Some weeks ago I had this .signature:
> C, the programming language that's the same
>          in all reference frames.

To which John Woods (jfw@eddie.mit.edu) had to say:
>Except for Herman Rubin's, Jim Giles', and Blair Houghton's...   :-)

Cheers!
-- 
A symbolic link is a POINTER to a file, | Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam:
 a hard link is the file system's GOTO. | maart@cs.vu.nl, mcsun!botter!maart

bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (10/20/89)

In article <3752@pinas.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:
>Some weeks ago I had this .signature:
>> C, the programming language that's the same
>>          in all reference frames.
>
>To which John Woods (jfw@eddie.mit.edu) had to say:
>>Except for Herman Rubin's, Jim Giles', and Blair Houghton's...   :-)

Hyuk.

				--Blair
				  "Something about accelerated
				   frames of reference goes here."

jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) (10/21/89)

In article <3752@pinas.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:
>Some weeks ago I had this .signature:
>> C, the programming language that's the same
>>          in all reference frames.
>
>To which John Woods (jfw@eddie.mit.edu) had to say:
>Except for Herman Rubin's, Jim Giles', and Blair Houghton's...   :-)

Actually, I agree with the signature line.  C _is_ equally bad
in all contexts.

rns@se-sd.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert) (10/25/89)

In article <14099@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>Actually, I agree with the signature line.  C _is_ equally bad
>in all contexts.

It comes to no surprise to me, and probably not to most of the readers of
this newsgroup, that this is your attitude about C.  I have a very serious
question for you:  What is your purpose in participating in this newsgroup?
Many people in comp.lang.c are critical of some aspects of C, but at least
most of them have some basic like for the language.  I could have mailed
this to you, since it borders on a flame (and flames are best dealt
with privately), but I want you to publicly state what your purpose is.

I also read comp.lang.fortran, and I don't see people criticizing Fortran
in the way you criticize C.  I don't think that means that there aren't
people who feel that Fortran is worthless.  In fact, I've seen several
regular contributors to comp.lang.c also post to comp.lang.fortran on occasion,
and I suspect at least some of these could eloquently rip apart that language.
I suspect they don't feel that it is appropriate to do so.

jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) (10/25/89)

From article <2104@se-sd.NCR.COM>, by rns@se-sd.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert):
> [...]
> It comes to no surprise to me, and probably not to most of the readers of
> this newsgroup, that this is your attitude about C.  I have a very serious
> question for you:  What is your purpose in participating in this newsgroup?

C is widely hyped as the "wave of the future" or as the only "serious"
programming language of the 80's.  I have seen books and popular magazines
that carry this hype to absurd lengths.  A balanced presentation of the
_real_ merits of the language is almost impossible to find.

This newsgroup provides a unique forum for the discussion of the language.
It is read by novices and experts alike.  It is also read by non-computing
professionals who may have control of the policy of their computing but
without specific programming knowledge themselves.  For the novices as
well as the non-computing types, it is useful to have a dissenting view
at least.

The truth is, all computing professionals should be concerned with
the subject of language design - the language is the _only_ tool
of our trade.  The real "wave of the future" hasn't been invented
yet, but we should all be concerned about it.  Computer professionals
should be discussing how best to integrate developments in OOP,
symbolic processing, and functional styles without sacrificing
the merits of conventional procedural languages. Continued disinformation
about the supposed value of C only detracts people from this issue.

Is it really desireable that genuinely bright people spend considerable
time discussing "the sizeof(struct)" or "(0) vs. NIL" (issues which
wouldn't exist in a well designed language to begin with)?  Or is it
better to dissuade as many as possible from pusuing this 18 year old
dead-end of a programming language?

tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (10/25/89)

In article <14116@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>This newsgroup provides a unique forum for the discussion of the language.

It also provides a unique opportunity for diarrhea of the keyboard.
When half the postings in a group are from one user, something is wrong...
-- 
"We plan absentee ownership.  I'll stick to       `o'   Tom Neff
 building ships." -- George Steinbrenner, 1973    o"o   tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET

jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) (10/26/89)

From article <14794@bfmny0.UU.NET>, by tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff):
> When half the postings in a group are from one user, something is wrong...

In the last few weeks, the submissions from me have totalled about 5%
of the traffic in this group.  The entire thread (including all postings
from others) ammounts to only about 20% of the traffic.

Bob.Stout@p6.f506.n106.z1.fidonet.org (Bob Stout) (10/26/89)

In an article of <25 Oct 89 00:59:04 GMT>, (Jim Giles) writes:

 >From article <2104@se-sd.NCR.COM>, by rns@se-sd.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert):
 >> [...]
 >> I have a very serious question for you:  What is your purpose in  
 >> participating in this newsgroup?
 >
 >C is widely hyped as the "wave of the future" or as the only "serious"
 >programming language of the 80's. 
 >...
 >This newsgroup ... is also read by non-computing
 >professionals who may have control of the policy of their computing but
 >without specific programming knowledge themselves. 
 >...
 >The truth is, all computing professionals should be concerned with
 >the subject of language design - the language is the _only_ tool
 >of our trade.  The real "wave of the future" hasn't been invented
 >yet, but we should all be concerned about it.  Computer professionals
 >should be discussing how best to integrate developments in OOP,
 >symbolic processing, and functional styles without sacrificing
 >the merits of conventional procedural languages. Continued disinformation
 >about the supposed value of C only detracts people from this issue.
 >
 >Is it really desireable that genuinely bright people spend considerable
 >time discussing "the sizeof(struct)" or "(0) vs. NIL" (issues which
 >wouldn't exist in a well designed language to begin with)?  Or is it
 >better to dissuade as many as possible from pusuing this 18 year old
 >dead-end of a programming language?

Well, that makes everything perfectly clear! How fortunate we are to have  
concerned, enlightened folks like you defining what the true wave of the  
future is for us poor ignorant mortals! Tell me, should we simply sit on our  
thumbs while we wait for your pure language or do we have your permission to  
use some of these lesser tools? If so, which may we use, please? I'm sure you  
wouldn't approve of assembly or Forth or anything like that and C is obviously  
out as well. Will perhaps Pascal, Modula-2 or Ada be OK? I'm sure C++ is  
almost as odious as C due to guilt by association and kinship. Please  
enlighten us further - inquiring minds want to know!

By the way, are you perhaps closely associated with a hardware vendor with a  
stake in selling the ever more powerful hardware required to make these  
dog-slow memory hog languages look like they're running efficiently, or are  
you simply an academician without any grasp of real-world non-ivory tower  
programming? Having done some work with LANL (C-5 & C-6), I know virtually all  
of the real work done there is FORTRAN anyway.

Sorry, Charlie - I do this stuff for a living, not as a theoretical exercise.  
I've had to write too many embedded systems in assembler because there simply  
wasn't a HLL that could run accceptably on hardware that fit in the budget. To  
me, C and Forth (yes, I even use the F-word programming language - gasp!) are  
the most valuable tools I have. For example, an elevator controller (a typical  
job for me) may be an exercise in AI programming, but if you try to tell a  
controller manufacturer what sort of hardware you'll require to write it in  
LISP or Smalltalk, you'll find out in a hurry what competitive pricing means  
as they show you the door! 

aperez@cvbnet.UUCP (Arturo Perez x6739) (10/26/89)

From article <14116@lanl.gov>, by jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles):
> From article <2104@se-sd.NCR.COM>, by rns@se-sd.NCR.COM (Rick Schubert):
>> [...]
>> It comes to no surprise to me, and probably not to most of the readers of
>> this newsgroup, that this is your attitude about C.  I have a very serious
>> question for you:  What is your purpose in participating in this newsgroup?
> 
> C is widely hyped as the "wave of the future" or as the only "serious"
> programming language of the 80's.  I have seen books and popular magazines
> that carry this hype to absurd lengths.  A balanced presentation of the
> _real_ merits of the language is almost impossible to find.
> 

I have several reactions to the above.  Who wrote those books?  And who
wrote those magazine articles?  I'm sure that hype comes from fact that
C is a very popular language.  But a lot of magazine writers aren't really
qualified to talk about anything, let alone something as complicated as
the utility of certain programming languages.

Let me offer a mild rebuke.  This discussion is getting quite tiresome as
it is obvious that you don't like C.  And that's fine by me; feel free
to be the loyal opposition.  But your style is one that leads to lots
of misinterpretation because your responses seem, at least to me, to be
vague and non-specific.  If you could perhaps limit yourself to me concrete
examples of the things that offend you maybe we could raise the level of
this discussion.  Also, since the 80's are over let's start talking about
the language of the 90's :-). (Whatever that may be...)

> This newsgroup provides a unique forum for the discussion of the language.
> It is read by novices and experts alike.  It is also read by non-computing
> professionals who may have control of the policy of their computing but
> without specific programming knowledge themselves.  For the novices as
> well as the non-computing types, it is useful to have a dissenting view
> at least.

Sounds like, although your above statement is ambiguous, that your talking
about management.   Are they really any managers reading this out there? Not
in any of the 3 companies I ever worked in.

If you mean other, non-programmer professionals then why should they care
about what we think about C?  They're not writing programs (as they have no
programming language) and most decisions about how software is developed tends
to revolve about the issues other than semantic purity of a language, such
as design tools, maintainability and so forth.  I must admit, C is rather 
lacking in a lot of the more attractive tools for such things (I've never
been lacking enough to see any).


Also, this forum isn't a sterling source of information.  As you say, all
kinds participate.  It takes MONTHs to figure out which of the participants
offer good advice and which don't.  I wouldn't use the information from 
these newsgroups to base any kind of purchasing or policy decision.

> 
> The truth is, all computing professionals should be concerned with
> the subject of language design - the language is the _only_ tool
> of our trade.  The real "wave of the future" hasn't been invented
> yet, but we should all be concerned about it.  Computer professionals
> should be discussing how best to integrate developments in OOP,
> symbolic processing, and functional styles without sacrificing
> the merits of conventional procedural languages. Continued disinformation
> about the supposed value of C only detracts people from this issue.

I disagree.  Sure, language design is important.  But not to EVERYONE.  If
that we the case, we'ld all still be working for the government calculating
firing tables.  Most software professionals only care about deadlines
and how to make the application more palatable to the user.  If it takes
assembler to get the job done, then so be it.  Language design doesn't
consume my working day very often.

> 
> Is it really desireable that genuinely bright people spend considerable
> time discussing "the sizeof(struct)" or "(0) vs. NIL" (issues which
> wouldn't exist in a well designed language to begin with)?  Or is it
> better to dissuade as many as possible from pusuing this 18 year old
> dead-end of a programming language?

Remember, novices AND experts participate.  Someone has to sure the novices
know how to do it in C, IF that's what they want to do.  I kind of like the fact
that the experts (you know who you are) never get tired of answering the
same questions, year after year.  Thanx, guys. (As an aside, perhaps we should
keep a list of commonly asked questions and post it once a month :-)


Now, can we please move on to comparing C to smalltalk? :-)

Arturo Perez
ComputerVision Business Unit
A Division of Prime

robert@isgtec.UUCP (Robert Osborne) (10/27/89)

In article <14116@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>The truth is, all computing professionals should be concerned with
>the subject of language design - the language is the _only_ tool
>of our trade.
WE ARE!!
As a computing professional C is one of the tools I use.
I am always looking for better tools,  however this group is not where
I look for a better language tool,  this is where I look for the best
way to use C.  Why don't you try an appropriate group.

>Is it really desireable that genuinely bright people spend considerable
>time discussing "the sizeof(struct)" or "(0) vs. NIL" (issues which
>wouldn't exist in a well designed language to begin with)?  Or is it
>better to dissuade as many as possible from pusuing this 18 year old
>dead-end of a programming language?

    Hold it! Stop all programming, stop all software development!
    YOU, yes you, get away from that keyboard.  There will be no
	more work done until WE create the "wave of the future" language.
	All you people who are trying to get by with C until this language
	comes along, STOP IT.  All you people trying to standardize C so that
	we can all use it the best way possible,  STOP WASTING YOUR TIME!
	^^^^^^^ NB: Sarcasm,  SAR-cassssssmmmmmm.^^^^^^^^^

Mr. Giles:  What is this wonderful language we should be using?

Until you can answer, or until there IS an answer, to this question
would you please stop net.proselytizing.

To net.world:   Sorry, I get a little miffed when idiots start
				defending their obnoxiousness.

Rob.
-- 
Robert A. Osborne                  ...uunet!mnetor!lsuc!isgtec!robert
(Nice sig Bruce mind if I steal it :-)    ...utzoo!lsuc!isgtec!robert
ISG Technologies Inc. 3030 Orlando Dr. Mississauga. Ont. Can. L4V 1S8

gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/28/89)

In article <14116@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>The truth is, all computing professionals should be concerned with
>the subject of language design ...

They should also be concerned with saving their souls by
acknowledging Jesus Christ as the One True Savior.  Should
we carry on that discussion in this newsgroup too?  Or should
we perhaps carry on our religious crusades in forums designed
for such discussions?

This newsgroup is designed for discussions about C, its rules
and its use.  It is not intended for attempts to define what
some other language should look like.  It is not even very
appropriate to suggest changes to C itself here, since the
language specification is pretty well nailed down at this point.

6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (10/28/89)

Sorry to post this as a follow-up to roughly the wrong person, but I
missed Giles' message the first time round and I couldn't resist.

In article <182@isgtec.UUCP> robert@isgtec.UUCP (Robert Osborne) writes:
> In article <14116@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>>Or is it
>>better to dissuade as many as possible from pusuing this 18 year old
>>dead-end of a programming language?

Giles said THIS? Isn't he the one who keeps espousing FORTRAN as the
better-designed language? If so, this comment is comedic at best. 18
years old? C is a BABY! Dead-end? Yeah, and Fortran's used exclusively
by all the up-and-coming hacks to write the new OS's and the new
windowing environments. C's had a wider distribution than Fortran in
half the time. Why call it a dead-end, then?
--
  | GurgleKat (Pete Gontier), pete@cavevax.ucsb.edu
  | .UUCP reply addresses bounce; try another path.
  | ...if you'd gone to Dartmouth, you'd not have had to take the math.