[Info-vax] VAX Macro to C conversion

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 7/10/2019 10:52 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 7/10/19 10:50 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 7/10/19 10:06 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> Bill Gunshannon  <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> * 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.
>>>
>>> Some of Arne's complaints about C are kind of silly, but this is a 
>>> really
>>> huge one.
>>>
>>> If you look at CERT advisories regarding security vulnerabilities in the
>>> past few decades, you will see that the vast majority of them are the 
>>> direct
>>> consequence of poor management of null-terminated strings.
>>>
>>> I know, the null-terminated string thing seemed like a good idea, and 
>>> easy
>>> to graft onto C, but in the end it has been a terrible, terrible plan 
>>> and
>>> has cost us greatly.
>>
>> 1.  Null Terminated Strings are not unique to C.
>> 2.  The competent programmer knows all of this in the first place
>>      and should write his programs accordingly.  Just because the
>>      language doesn't range check automatically (COBOL doesn't
>>      either, probably for the same reason) doesn't mean the
>>      programmer can't  or shouldn't.
>>
>> Read  my lips.  It's not the language.
> 
> I should also have mentioned that while Pascal did have range
> checking UCSD Pascal added the ability to turn it off.  And I
> have worked on programs where this was required to get the job
> done.

Lots of languages have abilities to turn off various
safety checks.

C# and Rust have a pretty cool way of doing that in limited scope.

That rarely causes problems if used selectively. Because if it is
only turned off at a specific place in the code for specific
reason, then that get a lot of attention.

Arne