If C is so evil why is it so successful?

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Noel Chiappa via cctalk once stated:
>     > From: Alfred M. Szmidt
> 
>     > No even the following program:
>     >   int main (void) { return 0; }
>     > is guaranteed to work
> 
> I'm missing something: why not?

  Yeah, I'm having a hard time with that too.  I mean, pedantically, it
should be:

	#include <stdlib.h>
	int main(void) { return EXIT_SUCCESS; }

where EXIT_SUCCESS is 0 on every plaform except for some obscure system no
one has heard of but managed to influence the C committee back in the late
80s.

> PS: There probably is something to the sports car analogy, but I'm not going
> to take a position on that one! :-) Interesting side-question though: is
> assembler more or less like a sports car than C? :-)

  One thing for sure---assembly langauge (for a given architecture) is
probably better defined (less undefined/underspecified behavior) than C.

  -spc