Olin Lathrop wrote:

> Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
>> The origins of C support that: it was created to provide a (low level)
>> implementation language of an OS, designed for being able to port the
>> system to different hardware. That people then used it for everything
>> else under the sun is not a wrong choice of the language designers.
> 
> But there were irresponsible design choices made for C 

"Irresponsible"? You're clearly leaving the ground of facts here :)

> For example, strong type checking with specific syntax to disable it in
> those relatively unusual cases (even in operating system code) where you
> need it would not have defeated their goals and not made the resulting
> code less efficient.  

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure I need to remind you of Python (created much
later and has quite a number of followers) and the duck-typing concept. No
type checking at all.

> Likewise allowing a expressions to also perform assignments had no other
> advantage than a quick expedient at the time of coding, with
> considerable disadvantage later.  Again, even with compiler technology
> of the day the resulting code would not need to be any different.

It's always easier to be smarter later. Quick, efficient coding is /still/
a major goal, at least of professional coders. I'm not sure there's to this
day a better language to write a portable multi-user OS for smallish
systems. (No big need for this today, but there was at the time.)


> No, it's the other way around.  It would be as if metric had been around for
> a while, but someone then deliberately created and had adopted english units
> afterwards.

I disagree. The concepts of the SI have been around for quite a while --
enough for the rest of the world being able to convert to its units,
usually decades ago --, but many in the US still deliberately create
designs in US units (not English units; I don't think many English units
are still in use, at least not in the US) with the resulting errors in the
many needed conversions.

Gerhard

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