30 Apr
2016
30 Apr
'16
3 a.m.
Fortran has an EQUIVALENCE statement, COBOL has redefines. Both allows the
subversion of types at the drop of a hat.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mouse
Sent: 30 April 2016 02:56
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've
sent email from]
I didn't write that the double-quoted text, but it seems to me that you
are
The main
thing C has that most other languages don't is *unsafe* data
typing - the ability to subvert the type system at the drop of a
cast, and the programming tradition to do this a lot.
{Sighs.} You really seem to
have it out for C. reading a pejorative attitude into it that I'm not
sure belongs there.
That _is_
one of the bigger things C has - and, like many
language features, it's a
double-
edged sword. It makes possible a lot of things, many
useful, many
dangerous,
and in some cases, even, both at once.
It is possible to come fairly close to type-safe C. But even in the most
type-safe
of my programs, I sometimes find a need to break the
type safety for one
reason or another - and C lets me do that without extreme gyrations. (I
remember the FORTRAN I used in my larval phase, back in the 1980s under
VMS; IIRC doing the equivalent of following a pointer was rather difficult
without the use of a helper routine and a language extension.)
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