Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> (Repeating... I'm not saying C or C++ are good, or better than
> something else. But people are saying that Pascal is better than C,

In a technical sense.  And Pascal is only one example.  I'm not pushing
Pascal, only trying to get everyone to realize how awful C is.

> yet C is more popular, vastly more popular, than Pascal. There must
> be a reason...

Of course, but since that reason is not technical superiority it is
irrelevant.  People use C because they have to, myself included.  There are
legitimate reasons to use C today, like it's what available employees know,
because new code has to be added to existing C code, because of wider
poratbility, because its the language of the available compilers for a
particular platform, because the customer insists on it regardless of why,
etc.  I think we all agree C has reached critical mass by a long shot.

The main point is that C is not technically superior.  In fact it's rather
inferior to better compiled languages like several of the Pascal variants
from the 1980s.  There is a serious cost in developing in C.  While none of
this is going to change that people continue to develop in C for all the
other reasons cited above, I'll be happy for now if only they grumble "I
have to use this $%&*@# C again, I wish I could use something better"
everytime they are forced to do so.  Things aren't going to change until the
general consensus is "C sucks".  Some are already there, but too many
sheeple aren't yet.


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