Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: rbowman Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,alt.folklore.computers,alt.unix.geeks Subject: Re: What is wrong with C? (and fond memories of VAX) Date: 7 Jan 2026 22:49:36 GMT Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: <10j9a1l$1toj$1@gal.iecc.com> <10j9vvr$23cp$2@gal.iecc.com> <10jb0is$172cb$2@dont-email.me> <679q2mx7o4.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <10jduat$22c54$1@dont-email.me> <10jelfq$2apo7$4@dont-email.me> <8pI6R.1243340$79B9.1051909@fx14.iad> <10jguou$341pn$1@nntp.eternal-september.org> <27cv2mx5fl.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <4Wc7R.1392895$ACS3.688415@fx17.iad> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net HCWD64afdDltqCW3BIjyuQpX56ZTpBqcZYlZJXcJrccINaBL+H Cancel-Lock: sha1:kSuwHiR826AZVTGgm7fmH0uGM8Y= sha256:QoqjxyqcBGdkEVJxYHsbUykdiX68+K+bIzKIwHqteAI= User-Agent: Pan/0.162 (Pokrosvk) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:80711 alt.folklore.computers:233359 alt.unix.geeks:182 On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 13:30:14 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote: > On 2026-01-06 19:57, Charlie Gibbs wrote: >> On 2026-01-06, Lars Poulsen wrote: >> >>> On 2026-01-06, Carlos E.R. wrote: >>> >>>> My C teacher said it was a mistake to use C as an all purpose >>>> language, like for userland applications. Using C is the cause of >>>> many bugs that a proper language would catch. >>>> >>>> That was around 1991. >>>> >>>> He knew. He participated in some study tasked by the Canadian >>>> government to study C compilers, but he could not talk about what >>>> they wrote. >> >> What language(s) did he suggest instead? > > I don't remember if he did. Maybe he told samples, but I think he mostly > told us of quirks of the language, things that were errors, but that the > compiler did not signal, so that we being aware we would write correct C > code. > > It is possible that current C compilers signal many more problems that > back then, but not runtime errors. gcc has become pickier. That isn't always a welcome thing when working with legacy code and requires a search of the compiler options to get it to shut up about such horrible heresies as assuming a function returns an int.