Programming language failings [was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from]

[Chuck Guzis]

On 04/30/2016 02:07 PM, Mouse wrote:

> Reading this really gives me the impression that it's time to fork
> C. There seems to me to be a need for two different languages, which
> I might slightly inaccurately call the one C used to be and the one
> it has become (and is becoming).


I vividly recall back in the 80s trying to take what we learned about
aggressive optimization of Fortran (or FORTRAN, take your pick) and
apply it to C.   One of the tougher nuts was the issue of pointers.
While pointers are typed in C (including void), it's very difficult for
an automatic optimizer to figure out exactly what's being pointed to,
particularly when a pointer is passed as arguments or re-used.

C++, to be sure, is much better in this respect.

--Chuck