[Info-vax] VAX Macro to C conversion

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 7/9/19 10:37 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/9/2019 8:20 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 7/9/19 9:04 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> One might also argue that C is rather prone to errors.
>>
>> C is not prone to any more errors than any other language. See
>> previous statement.
> 
> Languages are not equal when it comes to prevent errors.
> 
> And C is probably one of the worst in this regard among widely
> used languages.
> 
> Characteristics like:
> * no check on array indexes

Programmer should know that going in.

By the way, same applies to COBOL.

> * very flexible pointer arithmetic

Programmer should know that going in.

What's wrong with that?  All assemblers have pointer arithmetic.

> * very flexible type casting

Programmer should know that going in.

What's wrong with that?  A very useful function.  And easily done
in every assembler I have ever used.


> * allowing use of uninitialized variables

Programmer should know that going in.  You mean  like someone
here's beloved BASIC?  :-)
So does Fortran.

> * no string type

So what?  What's so great about a string type?  Fortran
didn't have it until 77.  Pascal didn't have it until UCSD.

> * non type safe enum
> * lots of old and bad design in standard RTL
> * lots of undefined and implementation specific behavior

Even Ada has that.

> makes it much easier to write code that result in bad runtime
> error than most other common languages of today.

Do I really need to go on?  Stop blaming a language for the
incompetence of the programmer.

> 
> Some of these characteristics may be very useful in certain
> contexts. But that does not make them less likely to
> result in errors.

If you ever worked with students you would have seen a lot of
errors in every language.  As they become more qualified the
errors decrease.  Yes, even in C.

bill