William Couture wrote:
>   1) "It is a poor workman who blames his tools"

Now that's really out of line.  Good workmen can certainly discuss the
merits of verious tools.

>   2) If you don't like it, feel free to make something better.  If
>       you actually succeed, the world will beat a path to your
>       door.

No they won't, at least if you're talking about technically better as in
this context.  People are forced to use C today for various reasons.
Technically better isn't one of them.

Let's say I created a great compiler that minimized human error, caught a
good fraction of the ones that you make anyway, allowed you to do what you
needed when you need for efficiency, allows for generating tight code,
slices veggies, walks the dog for you, and was free.  In short, it does
everything you want by definition.  Would you use it?  Probably not since
you have to link to existing libraries with interfaces only defined in C .h
files, you can't hire people that know the wonder-language, people want to
get on with their existing projects and not take time out to learn WL (even
though it would save time in the long run), it isn't availabe on enough
systems, etc.

> Seriously.  I use C every day.  I never run into stupid problems from
> trying to write something like Duff's device because I would never
> try to bend/break the language like that (and the compiler I use most
> gives me compile errors on that code).

Great for you, but not so great for those that have to maintain code written
by others.  Wouldn't it be a lot better if Duff's device were impossible?

> If you need rubber padding on the world to protect you, you might
> be in the wrong line of work.

So you really don't believe in the merits of tight type checking and syntax
with a better chance of human errors being illegal?


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