znmeb@fpssun.fps.com (Ed Borasky) (06/30/90)
If you use the Bookstore Shelf Inch Test as a measure of how widely used a language is, you will discover (at least around here) that the ONLY language in WIDE use today by professional programmers is "C". I know "C" sucks wet dog fur as compared to FORTH, but if you want to communicate with your peers in a COMPUTER language, you had (gerund deleted) well better do it in "C"!!! Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than C. So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"??
wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) (07/01/90)
> Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than > C. So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"?? Because the the first claim is only true in some theoretical or aesthetic sense, and not in a practical sense. The fact is, C is more *useful* for a wide variety of real programming tasks than any of the others. Assembler is hopelessly non-portable and very difficult to write and maintain. Pascal, FORTRAN, and MODULA make it difficult to deal with the "real" machine by attempting to hide too much. FORTH completely ignores the operating system. ADA is just too big and cumbersome to deal with. In some sense, C is an ugly language, but in another sense, it is an engineering triumph. By and large, it can be used to do most jobs reasonably efficiently, and you don't end up spending too much time working around its deficiencies. It is relatively complete, and of a manageable size (at least for most professional programmers). Finally, C has momentum. There is are many examples of strong positive feedback in the economy. It's called momentum. It's hard to get a ball rolling, and once rolling, it's hard to stop it. Nearly every processor chip ever invented has a better architecture than the 8086 family, so how come there are more PCs than everything else put together? Mitch
a684@mindlink.UUCP (Nick Janow) (07/02/90)
> znmeb@fpssun.fps.com writes: > > Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than > C. So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"?? The problem is that so many people look at the "Bookstore Shelf Inches" and decide that they had better go with "C" (and Unix). This means there is a larger market for "C" books, therefore more people write "C" books....and around it goes. :) If FORTH had been promoted for mainframe use (with a proper user-unfriendly interface), early enough, it might have had a larger section of "Bookstore Shelf Inches". We can't change the past; the important task is to promote FORTH for the future.
kassarji@boulder.Colorado.EDU (KASSARJIAN STEVEN J) (07/02/90)
>Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than >C. So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"?? Perhaps it would be better to attribute the Bookstore Shelf Inches to the amount of help needed. :-) Steve.
EM302723@VMTECMEX.BITNET ("Dr. Mangagoras 520-89-45", 5) (07/03/90)
>Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than >C. So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"?? > NO!!! Please, not another "my language is best" diatribe!!! YOU might think that C is the worst language. I respect your opinion. IMHO, Pascal, FORTRAN, Ada and Modula are MUCH inferior to C. Assembler? It has its uses. Which leaves us with FORTH and C. I just want to make the point that the fact that YOU don't like a language doesn't mean that EVERYBODY must hate it! +----------------------------------+------------------------------+ | The NetGhost | Mario Camou Riveroll | | EM302723@VMTECMEX.BITNET | Apdo. Postal 41554 | | EM302723@VMTECMEX.CEM.ITESM.MX | Mexico, D.F. 11001 Mexico | +----------------------------------+------------------------------+ | TELSTAR@VMTECMEX.BITNET TELSTAR@VMTECMEX.CEM.ITESM.MX | +----------------------------------+------------------------------+ | Don't take life too seriously - it's just a temporary situation | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (07/03/90)
In article <8406@znmeb.fps.com> znmeb@fps.com (Ed Borasky) writes: > Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than > C. Better for what? Pascal is an excellent teaching language. Fortran is well adapted to numerical stuff. Forth is the best language for small projects with severe memory limitations. Assembler is absolutely necessary for some things, but it's no good for general purpose programming. I'm not sure what ADA is good for... it'd be sort of like a historical byway in the road to object oriented programming if the DoD didn't support it. Modula is a good general purpose language, and probably better than C, but the standard run- time library is way underdefined. > So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"?? Because C is a nice intermediate-level language that can be cheaply implemented on small computers, while being large and general enough for systems programming on big ones. Pascal is too limited for systems work. Forth and assembler are too hard for most people. Fortran and ADA are too far from the hardware, and need too big a runtime... especially with the DoD's "NO SUBSETS" requirement. And modula is too late. There comes a tide in the affairs of men that, when taken at the flood, leads to success. C was in the right place and the right time to catch the tide. You can call it historical inertia if you like. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>
jjwoehr@nyx.UUCP (jack j. woehr) (07/03/90)
In article <22995@boulder.Colorado.EDU> kassarji@tramp.Colorado.EDU (KASSARJIAN STEVEN J) writes: >>Pascal, FORTRAN, FORTH, ASSEMBLER, ADA, MODULA are ALL better languages than >>C. So how come so many more Bookstore Shelf Inches are devoted to "C"?? > >Perhaps it would be better to attribute the Bookstore Shelf Inches to the >amount of help needed. :-) Ain't it the truth? Just about every Forth programmer in the world is virtually self-taught. Or Forth-taught, since Forth is willing to explain and reveal its internals to the programmer. On the other hand, if you want to learn C or understand what is going on in the internals of your compiler, Report To The Authorities Immediately With Checkbook In Hand! :-) =jax= (did you doubt it?)
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (07/03/90)
In article <1416@nyx.UUCP> jjwoehr@nyx.UUCP (jack j. woehr) writes: > On the other hand, if you want to learn C... The only book you need or should get is *still* Kernighan and Ritchie. The bookshelf index is a complex function, related mainly to marketing. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>