If C is so evil why is it so successful?

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Alfred M. Szmidt 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?
> 
> It boils down to pedantism.  The encoding of the above is ASCII, and
> the encoding type of a C program is implementation defined.  

  Name *ONE* computer langauge where this *ISN'T* the case.  Until then,
I'll consider this a completely bogus claim.  Meanwhile, is *this* better?

	??=include <stdlib.h>
	int main(void)
	??<
	  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
	??>

So that it might be possible to convert this obviously ASCII rendition of a
C progran into EBCDIC?

> The other
> thing is that the abstract machine defined in C can be utterly bogus,
> i.e. not capable of executing anything due to various implementation
> specified environment limitations.

  Citation required.  Plus a real-world example.  Because otherwise I think
you're skirting very close to Troll Territory here ... 

> Ofcourse, this is all academic ... and I don't know any such idiotic
> implementation.

  Or an annoying level of pedanticism here ...

  -spc (Seriously, citation required ... )