Re: [9fans] Is Plan 9 C "Less Dangerous?"

[Dave MacFarlane <driusan@gmail.com>]

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On Tue, Sep 4, 2018, 22:31 Chris McGee, <newton688@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I believe that the core of the problem with the C language is that is
>> based upon abstracting the PDP-11 instruction set.  CPUs, such as Intel/AMD
>> x64 are vastly more complex so "optimising" C compilers are trying to make
>> something simple take advantage of something far more complex.  Perhaps we
>> should call them "complexifying" compilers.
>>
>> Generally, model-to-model transformations (which is effectively what
>> compilers do under the covers) are easier to define when we transform from
>> a higher level of abstraction to a lower level of abstraction.  As folks in
>> the MBSE field explain it, trying to put a pig together from sausages.
>>
>
> I wonder if the hardware world suffers from some of the same complexity
> problems the software world does. Is it possible to build much simpler
> hardware as well or are there real physical properties that force them to
> be as complex as they are now?
>

Wasn't that the whole point of RISC?

>

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