Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Martin Ward Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: language design and Optimization techniques Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2019 11:56:28 +0100 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 41 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <19-04-031@comp.compilers> References: <72d208c9-169f-155c-5e73-9ca74f78e390@gkc.org.uk> <19-04-020@comp.compilers> <19-04-025@comp.compilers> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="89168"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: design, comment Posted-Date: 27 Apr 2019 10:18:28 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:2215 On 26/04/19 09:33, alexfrunews@gmail.com wrote: > In this day and age it is a shame that the language that is still very > much alive does not provide the programmer with easy-to-use (and > implement!) tools to perform/handle: > ... > Often times the desired functionality is already in the CPU I agree 100%. My guess is that manufacturers of CPUs which did *not* have a certain feature lobbied to have the feature removed from the language. The resulting compromise is a minimal intersection of features with 199 cases of undefined behaviour when agreement cannot be made. For a language which is supposed to give access to the "bare metal", C provides very little. We should be designing languages for people to use and then designing CPUs which can efficiently compile and execute these languages. I have quoted this before, but it bears repeating: "We shall do a much better programming job, provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty, provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages, provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers." -- E.W.Dijkstra, ACM Turing Lecture 1972, "The Humble Programmer" > P.S. this should've probably gone to some C group. I think that C is beyond hope and therefore this is definitely the most appropriate group! -- Martin Dr Martin Ward | Email: martin@gkc.org.uk | http://www.gkc.org.uk G.K.Chesterton site: http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc | Erdos number: 4 [C is close to the bare metal if the metal is a PDP-11 or maybe a GE 635. Other than that, it's an abstract machine of, as we have seen, highly debatable similarity to the underlying hardware. -John]