On 2/3/2013 4:53 AM, SomeDude wrote:
> It seems to me that the C experts crowd is the most conservative crowd you can
> find, and one that loves to impose its own masochism to the rest of the world.

I suspect that what happened is the C people who wanted more have long since moved to other languages, and the ones left are the people who don't want C to change at all.

Heck, even I proposed a way to fix C's array problem (which is, by far, C's biggest mistake) in a backwards compatible way, and all I get are blank looks from the C people.

Am 03.02.2013 20:42, schrieb Walter Bright:
> On 2/3/2013 4:53 AM, SomeDude wrote:
>> It seems to me that the C experts crowd is the most conservative crowd
>> you can
>> find, and one that loves to impose its own masochism to the rest of
>> the world.
>
> I suspect that what happened is the C people who wanted more have long
> since moved to other languages, and the ones left are the people who
> don't want C to change at all.

One of the few things I like about Windows 8 is that if Microsoft has its way, C will eventually become a second class citizen at least on one major platform.

>
> Heck, even I proposed a way to fix C's array problem (which is, by far,
> C's biggest mistake) in a backwards compatible way, and all I get are
> blank looks from the C people.

Proper modules, removing array to pointer decay with length support would surely make it a better language.

On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Paulo Pinto <pjmlp@progtools.org> wrote:

> One of the few things I like about Windows 8 is that if Microsoft has its way, C will eventually become a second class citizen at least on one major platform.
>
>
I presume you mean to C++? Since when was C a first class citizen on Windows though?

--
Ziad

On Sunday, 3 February 2013 at 12:53:19 UTC, SomeDude wrote:
> It seems to me that the C experts crowd is the most conservative crowd you can find, and one that loves to impose its own masochism to the rest of the world.

Good catch. But I see slightly different way. Old C programmers are experts in some fields and do not follow cool and idiotic ideas in programming languages.

On 2/3/2013 10:11 PM, Maxim Fomin wrote:
> Old C programmers are experts in
> some fields and do not follow cool and idiotic ideas in programming languages.

C's design isn't free of mistakes, either.

On Monday, 4 February 2013 at 07:50:41 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 2/3/2013 10:11 PM, Maxim Fomin wrote:
>> Old C programmers are experts in
>> some fields and do not follow cool and idiotic ideas in programming languages.
>
> C's design isn't free of mistakes, either.

That's for sure. And time factor contributed to the gap between how C is evaluated today and how it was evaluated when was established.

On Sunday, 3 February 2013 at 23:41:56 UTC, Ziad Hatahet wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Paulo Pinto <pjmlp@progtools.org> wrote:
>
>> One of the few things I like about Windows 8 is that if Microsoft has its
>> way, C will eventually become a second class citizen at least on one major
>> platform.
>>
>>
> I presume you mean to C++? Since when was C a first class citizen on
> Windows though?
>
> --
> Ziad

Windows x.y (16 bit), kernel level and games programming ?

C++ is gaining again first class status again in Windows 8, now with the WinRT runtime based on COM.

On Build 2012 there was a brief mention from Herb Sutter that kernel team is making the C kernel code be compilable in C++ mode.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/2-005

--
Paulo

On 2/4/2013 12:10 AM, Maxim Fomin wrote:
> On Monday, 4 February 2013 at 07:50:41 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 2/3/2013 10:11 PM, Maxim Fomin wrote:
>>> Old C programmers are experts in
>>> some fields and do not follow cool and idiotic ideas in programming languages.
>>
>> C's design isn't free of mistakes, either.
>
> That's for sure. And time factor contributed to the gap between how C is
> evaluated today and how it was evaluated when was established.

I try to look at C's design mistakes in the context of the time when it was created, rather than in today's context which would be unreasonable.

For example, despite history showing the preprocessor to be a bad idea, it was a good idea at the time, especially considering the small amount of memory available to the compiler. It enabled a lot of powerful capability for a small amount of compiler technology.

A serious design mistake that is understandable but less forgivable is the conflation of arrays and pointers, and I'd argue that is C's worst mistake.

C++'s use of < > for template parameters is not forgivable because many people correctly predicted its problems at the time.

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com>wrote:

>
> C++'s use of < > for template parameters is not forgivable because many people correctly predicted its problems at the time.
>

Does that also apply to Java and C#? :)

On 2/7/2013 6:52 PM, Ziad Hatahet wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com
> <mailto:newshound2@digitalmars.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     C++'s use of < > for template parameters is not forgivable because many
>     people correctly predicted its problems at the time.
>
>
> Does that also apply to Java and C#? :)
>

I haven't paid attention to those usages, so I don't have anything informed to say about it.