Re: do { quit; } else { }

On 2025-04-13, bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 13/04/2025 03:27, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 12.04.2025 13:00, bart wrote:

>

But I also 100% hate its syntax and various other bits and pieces. (OK,
about 80% then.)

 
(I also don't like its syntax too much. I think I'm just complaining
less than you about that. BTW, I've got the impression that all the
shortcomings of "C" are well known by most regulars here; they just
handle these facts in discussions differently than you.)

>
The shortcomings are downplayed considerably. Especially in discussions
involving me because they don't like it whenever someone states the obvious.
>
But also, most here have to use it professionally, so have learned to
work around it.

There are lots of examples of people just liking C.

Oh, Donald Knuth, in a 1993 Computer Literacy Bookshops interview:

  CLB: Did you integrate WEB with C because so many programmers today
  are using it, or do you personally like C and write with it?

  Knuth: I think C has a lot of features that are very important. The
  way C handles pointers, for example, was a brilliant innovation; it
  solved a lot of problems that we had before in data structuring and
  made the programs look good afterwards. C isn't the perfect language,
  no language is, but I think it has a lot of virtues, and you can avoid
  the parts you don't like. I do like C as a language, especially
  because it blends in with the operating system (if you're using UNIX,
  for example).

  All through my life, I've always used the programming language that
  blended best with the debugging system and operating system that I'm
  using. If I had a better debugger for language X, and if X went well
  with the operating system, I would be using that.

Richard Stallman of the GNU Project: developed a C compiler and started
cloning Unix in the mid 1980's, entirely as free software.

Billions of lines have been written in C as free open source since.

The reason some people have to use it for work is, ironically, is that
people's unpaid side projects evolved into widely deployed platforms
that the world relies on.

C has spawned imitation in the form of "C like" languages, that all
started as grenfield projects that could have chosen any syntax
they wanted.

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca