Re: "The Best Programming Language for the End of the World"

On 17-04-2025 14:04, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:

Oh? For example 'static' in a c-source has the meaning of making a name
invisile to the outside world.
A normal person would call that 'local', especially given that static
actually meant residing in heap memory.

Exactly my point. BTW, you could state a similar story around "void" - which in some cases means "untyped" (I like "raw") and in some cases "nothing". And yeah, we've gotten used to all these quirks - but that doesn't mean it isn't cringe in some way.

So as the c-expert hired for Fico moldings I introduced a file
fico.h with a line
      #define static local
 (and the line
     #define TRUE 1
because they came from Pascal and thought that TRUE was -1 ).

I loved that! There was some article in Byte where the guy stated he used such a technique to get people used to C after FORTRAN - I used a similar technique to get weaned from Pascal. And yeah - that file included TRUE. And BEGIN. And END.
I used it until people began to complain "it wasn't proper C" - which technically - it was. Then I converted the whole shebang to "proper C". But "4th.h" still contains these lines:
#define TRUE    (1)
#define FALSE   (0)
So, in a little way "easyc.h" still survives! ;-)
Hans Bezemer