From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dan Cross Message-Id: <200111112325.SAA09896@augusta.math.psu.edu> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] pptp.c install failed In-Reply-To: <20011111211751.23249.qmail@g.bio.cse.psu.edu> References: Cc: Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 18:25:59 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 1e95d8aa-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 In article <20011111211751.23249.qmail@g.bio.cse.psu.edu> you write: >C needs a counted array type I disagree. What we need is a new systems programming language that includes a first-class string type that can grow dynamically. Limbo does this, but I don't think it goes far enough in other areas (functions should be first-class, too, and where's my generic dictionary? If I ever have to code another set of freakin' hash table routines... I mean come on, that's not skill, it's tedium). C is *really great* for what it does, but all too often it becomes the language of choice when it shouldn't be. If Inferno taught us nothing else, it's that it needn't be a one-man game. Large chunks of the Inferno kernel are written in C, but all of the user-land stuff is done in Limbo. If we could take that concept of a two-man game and apply it to Plan 9, we'd have an incredibly powerful system (but be even further marginalized). I guess what I'm really looking for is something like ``Limbo vs. ML'' meets ``?[cl]'' to replace C at the user level. - Dan C.