emuleomo@paul.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo) (03/23/90)
With all this ranting and raving about the evils of pointer arithmetic in C, do people realise that it may not have been possible to implement C++ in C (i.e. cfront translator) without using these evil pointers? Futhermore, how come C is rapidly becoming the most popular application implementation language in the world if it is sooo evil? In fact, most PC applications (Lotus 1-2-3, Foxbase+, Wordperfect etc...) are being written in C!!! I say, like capitalism, let the market (users) decide the going price (favourite language) for the product. Remember that Ada, despite DOD funding, is languishing! I daresay that even Forth, an entirely user driven language, is more popular. (No disrespect to Forth whatsoever) --Emuleomo O.O. (emuleomo@yes.rutgers.edu) -- ** The ONLY thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history!
jlg@lambda.UUCP (Jim Giles) (03/24/90)
From article <Mar.23.06.24.39.1990.14840@paul.rutgers.edu>, by emuleomo@paul.rutgers.edu (Emuleomo): > [...] > Futhermore, how come C is rapidly becoming the most popular > application implementation language in the world if it is sooo evil? Programming languages tend to become popular _in_spite_ of their quirks rather than _because_ of them. Advocates of one language over another seldom recognize this and proudly point at the worst features of their favorite language as being its main virtues. C's use of pointers is a case in point (so to speak). People can write applications in spite of the way pointers make them do it - but this is because people are clever, not because pointers are good. > [...] > I say, like capitalism, let the market (users) decide the going price > (favourite language) for the product. Seems to me that a _lot_ of people spent a _lot_ of money in past years on things like 'roller disco'. Popularity (even to the point of lots of money changing hands) is _not_ a guage of quality. J. Giles