[Info-vax] Viable versus ideal programming languages

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 3/21/22 20:28, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 3/21/2022 3:26 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2022-03-21, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 3/21/2022 2:46 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I would say that C is a _viable_ programming language in that case,
>>>> but I would not say that it is an _ideal_ programming language.
>>>>
>>>> You may end up using something that is viable but is not your preferred
>>>> language. This could be due to language availability across multiple
>>>> environments, the ability of the language to be easily called from
>>>> other languages, etc.
>>>>
>>>> This is especially important when you are writing library code for
>>>> example. Consider that I can write a portable library in C, and I can
>>>> then compile it unchanged on VMS, Linux/FreeBSD/Unix, Windows, embedded
>>>> operating systems, bare metal ARM/MIPS/etc, and even 8/16-bit MCUs if
>>>> the library is small enough.
>>>>
>>>> I can then easily call that C library from a wide range of languages
>>>> running on those multiple operating systems and environments. The 
>>>> language
>>>> also allows me to create code that runs both in kernel mode and user 
>>>> mode.
>>>>
>>>> Name one other programming language that allows me to do all that.
>>>
>>> C compilers are available on most platforms.
>>
>> I would be interested in knowing about a platform they are not
>> available on. You can even get them for GPUs...
> 
> I don't know any.
> 
> But if any then I would expect it to be either very old platforms
> from before C or very tiny platforms only supporting assembler.
> 

Well, Z80 and 6809 both meet your criteria of very old and very
small and both of them support C compilers.  Maybe not ANSI C but
then, some of us are still quite happy with K&R.

bill