[Info-vax] Viable versus ideal programming languages

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/22/2022 4:05 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 3/22/2022 2:38 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> Would be nice if that was not the only viable option, but the problem
>> is that C is a very viable language in all of these cases, even when
>> it is not an ideal language, so no-one has developed a viable alternative
>> over the decades.
> 
> Your argument is, that if one desires to have transportable code, then C 
> allows that.
> 
> But what if one never intends to have transportable code?  Then the 
> argument is meaningless, and, one should choose the language(s) that 
> best support the task(s) intended.

Unless one is writing very HW/OS close code, then portability
is always a plus - maybe it will one day be necessary to port
(only question is whether it is 1% probability or 99% probability)
and there is no drawbacks from being portable (in itself).

So portability should always be counted as a plus. But obviously
there can be other aspects outweighing that in the evaluation.

Also note that while portable code tend to be tricky among
native languages, then it is more the norm in non-native
languages.

Arne