Unix was written in C.  Lisa was written in Pascal.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
(long pause)
Lisa!

If you like Pascal, go ahead and use it.  I prefer C.  That filter we=20
discussed a while back?  I implemented my version, averaging 10=20
frequency samples, in C (CCS) on a 16F636.  Took about 10 minutes.

set_timer1(0);
TMR1ON=3D1;
delay_ms(10);
TMR1ON=3D0;
val=3Dget_timer1();
total+=3Dval;
total-=3Dfilt;
filt=3Dtotal/10;

Kerry


Olin Lathrop wrote:
> PETER ONION wrote:
>  =20
>>>  Worse, what I  wrote above would not be
>>> interpreted as intended, but would be perfectly  legal and not
>>> generate any compile error.
>>>      =20
>> Indeed, but who's fault is that ?  You wrote valid C and that's
>> really all the compiler can check for.  If your C code doesn't
>> do what you expected it to do then it's because you don't understand
>> the C syntax and that's not the compiler's fault ! ;-)
>>    =20
>
> It's not about "fault", and in any case it can't be the compiler's since
> it's just following the rules of the language.  Of course it's on the
> programmer to know the syntax of the language, but there is also good and
> bad syntax design.
>
> In this case the syntax allows a easily made error to still result in leg=
al
> code but to not be interpreted as intended.  Programmers will always come=
 up
> with more clever errors than a language designer can and should account f=
or,
> but a measure of good language design is how much common and
> should-be-anticipated errors get caught as illegal syntax.  A great examp=
le
> is the really irresponsible C-ism "if (i=3D1)...".  While the error is
> technically the programmers, the syntax rules are just asking for humans =
to
> make that mistake.
>
> In these two cases at least, Pascal gets it a lot more right than C.  In
> Pascal:
>
>   if outer_condition then
>       if inner_condition then count :=3D 1;
>     else
>       ...
>
> Would generate a syntax error because the ";" ends the IF statement and E=
LSE
> therefore is not valid there.
>
> In the second case, the assignment operator is ":=3D" whereas "=3D" is a
> statement of equality:
>
>   if i =3D 1 then ...
>
> does exactly what most people reading it would think.  If you actually wr=
ote
>
>   if i :=3D 1 then ...
>
> then you'd get a compile error since a assignment statement isn't allowed=
 as
> the condition expression of a IF statement.
>
> Language design *does* matter.  Unfortunately C is badly designed but so
> many people have gotten used to it they have become blind to the problems=
..
>
>
> ********************************************************************
> Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products
> (978) 742-9014.  Gold level PIC consultants since 2000.
>  =20



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