Path: csiph.com!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.std.c Subject: Re: request for feedback: n2698 - generic functions and parametric types Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2023 07:48:13 -0800 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 36 Message-ID: <865ydpq6o2.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <04f0a483-554c-40d2-bf79-4c5155a0ebban@googlegroups.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: reader01.eternal-september.org; posting-host="60a7a09099a9247382aee0cc66dfd4bb"; logging-data="1921877"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1921HXEQD0oH0ttUA2FtSLVZtDycGPvMF4=" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:nIWZUy8heC18/zn+dw02zwARzo4= sha1:wx3QO8rvD6MkmCJpUfdi7vHUYl8= Xref: csiph.com comp.std.c:6460 "Leandro T. C. Melo" writes: > Hi everyone, > > I'm working on: > > - n2698 Enabling Generic Functions and Parametric Types in C > > The proposal is still a draft, but it already is quite complete; I > even provide a prototype for it. > > If you're interested in taking a look at the proposal, here it is: > > - https://ltcmelo.com/n2698.pdf > > I'd appreciate any feedback a lot. This proposal is painfully bad, along a variety of axes. Perhaps the most important axes are that it isn't clear exactly what is being proposed, and to the extent that what is being proposed is evident it looks like it is not very well thought out. The constructs described look like they are more or less a trimmed-down version of C++ templates, but with an even worse syntax than templates (and I can't tell what differences there might be in the semantics, in areas where the two overlap). Also the writing and presentation are awful, which really doesn't help. I am sympathetic to the idea that C might benefit from having some kind of template or parameterized type mechanism, but what is suggested in this proposal is not it. Specific comment: don't use the word "generic". C already has a construct that could be called "generic", namely _Generic.