The C programming language

While I'd definitely have to weigh in on the side of the 'C' programmers, there are a few things that have disappointed me over the years, more with the compilers than with the general notion of 'C' as a language. As I've often said, however, "Where you sit determines what you see." I live in the microcontroller world, and the compilers vary widely in terms of functionality and quality. There's a range of compilers reaching from doing WAY too much to doing virtually nothing helpful at all. 'C' allows me to write code for these small computers/controllers that runs pretty quickly in terms of development time/effort, yet still enables me to focus my efforts on the task specifics. The compiler (hopefully) deals with the common logica constructs, e.g. iteration, comparison, etc. though it can't be relied on to produce the most compact code nor can it be expected to produce the shortest run times. Most of these compilers produce assembly language output. That means that I can take their output and whittle on at as I need to. I've seen very few of the more popular languages available for microcontrollers. There's no CC++ for the PIC, nor is there an ADA for the 68HC705. WHile there are PASCAL compilers for the more popular microcontrollers, they're not that common, and support for the various flavors of the common, e.g. 8x51-core-based varieties, of which there are literally dozens, is often left to the user. If it weren't for 'C', there'd only be assembler for most of my programming, and, frankly, if it weren't for 'C', there'd probably be few assemblers, since they're almost all written in 'C'. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 4:02 AM Subject: Re: The C programming language portable the