Just Wondering

[Jim Giles]

>From article <10122 at smoke.BRL.MIL>, by gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn):
> However, if you don't like C, you're doing the readers of this newsgroup
> a disservice by complaining about it, just as it does nobody any good
> for VMS advocates to argue that UNIX is awful in the UNIX newsgroups.

I agree entirely with this assessment.  In fact, I was going to recommend
that this thread of the discussion be moved to comp.lang.misc where it
is at least plausible that program language design features can be
discussed with a eye toward the design of new languages.  Examination
of the percieved mistakes in C has a valid application in this context.

> [...]                                      If it weren't too late now,
> suggestions about ways to improve the language would have been useful
> too.  (I don't recall seeing yours in the mountain we had to wade
> through before or during the public reviews of the proposed C standard.)

I read the draft standard cover-to-cover.  I disqualified myself on making
comment, however, because most of my objections to the language involve
features that most people consider to be the 'heart' of C.  A suggesion
that intrinsic operators with side-effects should not be implemented would
hardly have been accepted as serious criticism by a committee standardizing
C, for example.