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From: Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: Python Front-end to GCC
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:39:42 +0000 (UTC)
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On 2013-10-22, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:04:57 +0000, Dave Angel wrote:
>
> [...]
>> I agree with most of what you say in the message, 
>
> Glad to hear I wasn't completely full of it. As a non-C developer, I'm 
> very conscious that a lot of what I know about C is second hand.
>
>
>> but here you go on to
>> say the C code is unsafely skipping initialization, which is not the
>> case.
>
> Are you talking generically, or specifically about the C code
> referenced in the link I gave?

In C, static/global variables are always zeroed.

> "Memory is always zeroed" is one of the advantages of Go over C and C++, 
> at least according to Rob Pike:
>
> http://commandcenter.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html

Perhaps he's talking about automatic variables or malloc()ed memory?

You'd have to ask him.

>> Perhaps you were thinking of an automatic variable, which is not
>> initialized unless the programmer says so, and is then initialized with
>> code.
>
> No, I was thinking of an array. Arrays aren't automatically initialised 
> in C.

If they are static or global, then _yes_they_are_.  They are zeroed.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I selected E5 ... but
                                  at               I didn't hear "Sam the Sham
                              gmail.com            and the Pharoahs"!