If C is so evil why is it so successful?

[dave.g4ugm at gmail.com]

“C” is successful because it is evil. 

 

It is so easy to write a piece of dirty code that will do the job in hand, on the current platform, that is devoid of error checking but which gets the jobs done.

 

It becomes evil when the code is re-purposed from a one off into production code.

 

Writing good robust code in “C” is hard. Verifying its robust is even harder. So it doesn’t get done…

 

.. I used to think of “C” as a tool that would allow you to shoot yourself in the foot in all the same ways as you had available in assembler, plus a few more, but much more quickly…

 

Dave 

 

 

From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Charles Dickman via cctalk
Sent: 12 April 2017 01:38
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: If C is so evil why is it so successful?