From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 11159 invoked from network); 13 Mar 2023 19:16:24 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 13 Mar 2023 19:16:24 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AAA7C412F5; Tue, 14 Mar 2023 05:16:20 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minun.buric.co (minun.buric.co [51.15.8.196]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D54A412EA for ; Tue, 14 Mar 2023 05:16:13 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minun.buric.co (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 66CFE35C0ED0; Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:17:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minun.buric.co (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C91E35C0B0D for ; Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:17:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:17:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Steve Nickolas X-X-Sender: mary@sd-119843.dedibox.fr To: TUHS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <20230310113708.AD55518C080@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> User-Agent: Alpine 2.21 (DEB 202 2017-01-01) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-ID-Hash: 347DJAJEUND6ZUEBRNFEPKW3SKDWTSZ6 X-Message-ID-Hash: 347DJAJEUND6ZUEBRNFEPKW3SKDWTSZ6 X-MailFrom: usotsuki@buric.co X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: [TUHS]: C dialects (was: I can't drive 55: "GOTO considered harmful" 55th anniversary) List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Mon, 13 Mar 2023, Clem Cole wrote: > Frankly, I'd probably rather see ISO drop a bunch of the stuff they are now > requiring and fall back at least to K&R2 -- keep it simple. The truth is > that we still use the language today is that K&R2 C was then (and still is) > good enough and got (gets) the job done extremely well. Overall, I'm not > sure all the new "features" have added all that much. C99 did introduce one thing I use: Beyond that, I still code strict C89. I simply treat the language itself as ossified. I also still make assumptions about the compiler that might not still be true, so for example unsigned short a; unsigned char b; b=0xFF; a=b<<8; I expect to return 0 even though the logical answer is 0xFF00, and I _always_ code it like this: b=0xFF; a=b; a<<=8; or alternatively b=0xFF; a=((unsigned short) b)<<8; and there's other defensive stuff I do. I honestly don't see the point in the other changes to the language and feel they take C away from what it has always been. -uso.