Typesafety versus Worse is Better - was Re: Fwd: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

[Toby Thain]

On 03/12/14 8:12 AM, Mouse wrote:
>>> Now that I use Linux pretty exclusively, I have grudgingly accepted
>>> C.
>> You can give it up any time.  There are dozens of far better
>> languages that have cropped up in the 40 years since C was invented
>> for a particular environment (that doesn't resemble anything much we
>> do today).
>
> Today's C doesn't resemble Kernighan & Ritchie's C all that much,
> either.

The only important difference that comes to mind is prototype checking, 
which as far as static safety goes, is very weak tea.

>
> There are no "better" languages, because "better" is ill-defined.
> There are better languages for this task in this environment or that
> task in that environment, for various tasks and environments, but there
> are still tasks and environments for which C wins.

That doesn't mean people should not stop using it where it doesn't win. 
The fetishisation of C is a massive cultural problem with massive 
tangible costs.

--Toby

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