🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3vhhgh$km0@News1.mcs.net> jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming) wrote:
> Sample Partial Mission Directions
>
> 1. C grows up to be like C++

No - that's what C++ is there for. 
We already have C++, what iss the point in duplicating it?

> 2. C settles down as a great high-level assembly language

Yes - that's what most of our customers use C for.  Small, fast embedded
programs without OS support. Set-top boxes, telephones, disk controllers,
toasters, and the like.

> 3. C becomes ideal companion language for other high-level languages

No - there is too much low-level dangerous stuff for C ever to be a true
high-level language without severely emasculating it, or making it as
complicated as C++.  C is C, and it can't ever become Modula-2.

> 4. C requires very little change and just needs a few tweaks

This one is my preferred Mission - in tandem with no. 2.

> Before everything but the kitchen sink is dropped into ANSI C, maybe we
> should discuss where C fits in the coming years...

Absolutely. If you want to see what happens to a language when the kitchen
sink gets tossed in, look at Fortran 90/95 and Ada. And of course, C++.

C++ is becoming the applications development language of choice (for good or
ill), so why don't we just accept that C should be left as-is (with fixes) for
real low-level work?
--
    Iain A F Fleming  Compiler Group  1000 Aztec West  Bristol UK
      <URL:http://www.inmos.co.uk/~iainf/>  tel: +44.1454.611537