8 Nov
2006
8 Nov
'06
3:04 p.m.
"Ethan Dicks" wrote:
I, on the other hand, _would_ elevate C much higher than Pascal, if
only because you can, among other things, adapt or even entirely
replace the standard library (unlike Pascal which has reserved
keywords for way too many things).
C has been called a "glorified PDP-11 assember" - given that I learned
assembler on the PDP-11 (and the 6502 and 1802 and the Z-80...) before
I tried C, it all made sense very rapidly. I don't see that slam as a
limitation.
I'm sure we could go on and on, but if you are interested in a different
approach, go look at lisp, scheme, ruby and python. Once you master
lisp/scheme (and to some extent, python and ruby), I think you may see
the "glorified PDP-11 assember" comment in a different light.
I will claim (and others will disagree) that being to write macros which
are executed to generate code allows you to transcend the "assembler
metaphore". You can effectively make a new language for each problem.
Don't get me wrong, I like C for what is. It's a wonderful high level
assembler (I can email you some lisp code which translates Alpha asm
into C, for example). But it's lacking in some very useful higher level
features (like strings and lambda expressions, for example).
The problem tends to occur when people try to solve problems using C for
which C is not suited. It's the old "when all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail" problem.
I enjoyed my time with Pascal and TSX, but we could have done a better job
with a language more suited to the problem we were trying to solve.
no flames or long discussions about C, please.
I would be interested to hear about other languages people used on
pdp-11's however :-)
-brad