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“A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C

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  “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-12-12 19:46 -0700
    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-12-13 08:07 +0000
    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-12-13 14:49 +0000
      Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-12-14 13:30 -0600
        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-14 15:00 -0500
          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-14 21:13 +0000
          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-12-14 16:58 -0600
            Re: origins of C Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-12-14 16:23 -0700
              Re: origins of C Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2020-12-15 21:54 -0600
                Re: origins of C Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-12-16 07:19 -0700
                  Re: origins of C Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-12-16 16:06 +0000
                    Re: origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-16 17:17 +0000
                    Re: origins of C Niklas Karlsson <anksil@yahoo.se> - 2020-12-17 13:02 +0000
                  Re: origins of C Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-12-19 18:39 +0000
              Re: standard mania, was origins of C John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-12-16 18:25 +0000
            Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-12-19 18:26 +0000
              Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-12-19 18:47 +0000
              Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-12-19 14:46 -0500
                Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-12-20 16:14 +0000
                  Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-12-20 11:29 -0500
              Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-12-20 08:57 -0600
                Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-20 10:43 -0500
                  Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-12-20 16:38 +0000
                    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-20 11:54 -0500
                      Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-21 18:13 +0000
                        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-21 13:37 -0500
                          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-12-21 16:01 -0500
                            Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-21 16:03 -0500
                              Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-22 19:05 +0000
                                Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-22 14:13 -0500
                                  Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> - 2020-12-22 21:55 +0000
                                  Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-22 21:58 +0000
                  Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-12-20 17:04 +0000
                    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-20 13:19 -0500
                      Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-12-20 18:40 +0000
                      Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-12-20 14:03 -0500
                        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-20 18:09 -0500
                          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-12-21 08:11 +0000
                            Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-12-22 10:39 -0700
                          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-12-21 17:33 +0000
                        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-12-20 17:35 -0700
                  Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-21 18:10 +0000
                    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-21 13:23 -0500
                      Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-12-21 13:37 -0500
                        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-12-22 18:59 +0000
                          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-22 14:23 -0500
                    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-12-21 19:31 +0000
        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-12-14 20:17 +0000
        Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C maus <maus@dmaus.org> - 2020-12-14 21:24 +0000
          Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-12-14 19:30 -0500
            Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-12-14 21:06 -0500
    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C maus <maus@dmaus.org> - 2020-12-14 19:08 +0000
    Re: “A damn stupid thing to do”—the origins of C Robin Vowels <robin.vowels@gmail.com> - 2021-02-10 07:42 -0800

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#215586

J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 13:19:20 -0500, Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>> 
>>> On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 10:43:43 -0500
>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> The very worst thing?  Templates.  Templates led to some of the worst
>>>> compile/link procedures I've ever seen.
>>> 
>>> I'm inclined to agree but without templates C++ would be really
>>> nasty because of the way strict typing gets in the way of polymorphism.
>> 
>> Yes it's powerful, but no language should be more complicated than the
>> problems you're trying to solve with it.
>> 
>> Where I work one of my tasks was to try guide other developers through
>> the compile/link process.  HP/UX and z/OS presented compile processes
>> that were too complicated for the average developer to deal with.
> 
> I don't know HP/UX but this is the nature of Z/OS.
> 

Not so. Every place I’ve worked had compile-and-link procs, which were
created once, and Danny Developer never had to code more than “// EXEC
LINK,PGM=xxxxxxxx”

-- 
Pete

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#215612

Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> writes:
>
>> On 12/19/2020 12:26 PM, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
>>> On Mon, 2020-12-14, Dallas wrote:
>>>> I took a multi-year hiatus from Usenet.  Went from needing serious
>>>> consultation on C using comp.lang.c when I was a C programmer to
>>>> looking at C as folklore after not using it (or Usenet) for a decade
>>>> or so.
>>>> So I missed my chance to interact with Dennis here.
>>>> I would hate to live without a garbage collector these days.
>>> You probably mean "I would hate to live with C's memory management".
>>> Neither C++ nor Python (to name two popular languages) rely on a
>>> garbage collector, but you still don't have to manage memory manually.
>>> (I am a big fan of the C++ way of doing it, since from my point of
>>> view, it stays in the C tradition, which I like.)
>>
>> I have little experience with C++
>>
>> How does C++ simplify memory management?
>
>I know enough C++ to dislike it.

C++ can be palatable if you think of it as C with classes and
be judicious in which language features you use.

>
>When objects go out of range, they get freed automatically.
>Objects have destructors so you can embed all your cleanup in the
>destructor and it gets invoked when you destroy the object or it goes
>out of range.

Which is quite handy, in many cases.

>
>Best thing about C++?  The  // comment delimiter.  Now mostly adopted by
>C.
>
>The very worst thing?  Templates.  Templates led to some of the worst
>compile/link procedures I've ever seen.

That was definitely true in 1991.   They're completely invisible with
modern compilers.

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#215614

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:

> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>The very worst thing?  Templates.  Templates led to some of the worst
>>compile/link procedures I've ever seen.
>
> That was definitely true in 1991.   They're completely invisible with
> modern compilers.

Well, that wasn't true on z/OS when I retired 5 years ago.
I really doubt that's changed.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#215617

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:23:07 -0500, Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com>
wrote:

>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>
>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>The very worst thing?  Templates.  Templates led to some of the worst
>>>compile/link procedures I've ever seen.
>>
>> That was definitely true in 1991.   They're completely invisible with
>> modern compilers.
>
>Well, that wasn't true on z/OS when I retired 5 years ago.
>I really doubt that's changed.

I find myself wondering what Scott means when he says "modern
compilers".

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#215636

J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
>On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:23:07 -0500, Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>
>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>The very worst thing?  Templates.  Templates led to some of the worst
>>>>compile/link procedures I've ever seen.
>>>
>>> That was definitely true in 1991.   They're completely invisible with
>>> modern compilers.
>>
>>Well, that wasn't true on z/OS when I retired 5 years ago.
>>I really doubt that's changed.
>
>I find myself wondering what Scott means when he says "modern
>compilers".

The GNU Compiler collection.
Greenhills C++.
Wind Rivers Diab Compilers.
The Intel C++ compiler.

and a half dozen others.   You can't have a modern compiler when
you are stuck with JCL :-)

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#215640

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:

> J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:
>>On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:23:07 -0500, Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>>
>>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>The very worst thing?  Templates.  Templates led to some of the worst
>>>>>compile/link procedures I've ever seen.
>>>>
>>>> That was definitely true in 1991.   They're completely invisible with
>>>> modern compilers.
>>>
>>>Well, that wasn't true on z/OS when I retired 5 years ago.
>>>I really doubt that's changed.
>>
>>I find myself wondering what Scott means when he says "modern
>>compilers".
>
> The GNU Compiler collection.
> Greenhills C++.
> Wind Rivers Diab Compilers.
> The Intel C++ compiler.
>
> and a half dozen others.   You can't have a modern compiler when
> you are stuck with JCL :-)

Not sure how JCL comes into the picture.
As I've explained before, I developed z/OS tools to do compiles using
CLIST.

Of course you could also invoke the exact same compiler using z/OS
Unix system services.

IBM came up with 2 C compilers.  I think IBM might have done the first
one, C/370.  When they wanted ANSI C they farmed out compiler
development, this was around 2000.  I don't think I ever found out
who did the actual work, I just got the impression it wasn't IBM.

I think your point might be, it's hard to do seamless stuff when
you want to cater to 100% compatibility for everything that's
come before.  But it wasn't JCL, object code format, load module format,
the binder, inter-language calls to all the other languages might have
played a role.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#215621

Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> schrieb:

> C++ can be palatable if you think of it as C with classes and
> be judicious in which language features you use.

Just read on a mailing list:

# Hiring someone else to write your C++ code is probably a good idea
# for preserving sanity.  Although having to read the code later
# will undo any of the previously mentioned benefits.

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#215492

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 13:30:10 -0600
Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> wrote:

> I remember when Dennis Ritchie would post on the newsgroup comp.lang.c

	He was a regular poster in here too.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

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#215494

On 2020-12-14, Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> wrote:
> On 12/13/2020 8:49 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:46:16 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>> 
>>> https://apple.news/A_-wNCMkYTUqUYmLw17kK-A
>> 
>> I have actually met David Barron on a number of occasions. I have had
>> dinner with David Wheeler several times. When I went up to Martin
>> Campbell-Kelly (who I had admired for years) at a meeting a couple of
>> years ago, I was gobsmacked to find out that he already knew who *I* was!
>> I have had a lot of contact with Martin Richards (I used to run a BCPL
>> user group).
>> 
>> And I met Ritchie and Thompson once, briefly.
>> 
>> This is all quite worrying as some of them are now dead.
>> 
>
> I remember when Dennis Ritchie would post on the newsgroup comp.lang.c
>
>

Also here. I rememner a post that ascribed to medicaid (I don't really
understand the US social aid systems) to his continued survival.


-- 
greymausg@mail.com

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#215497

On 14 Dec 2020 21:24:52 GMT, maus <maus@dmaus.org> wrote:

>On 2020-12-14, Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> wrote:
>> On 12/13/2020 8:49 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
>>> On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:46:16 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>>> 
>>>> https://apple.news/A_-wNCMkYTUqUYmLw17kK-A
>>> 
>>> I have actually met David Barron on a number of occasions. I have had
>>> dinner with David Wheeler several times. When I went up to Martin
>>> Campbell-Kelly (who I had admired for years) at a meeting a couple of
>>> years ago, I was gobsmacked to find out that he already knew who *I* was!
>>> I have had a lot of contact with Martin Richards (I used to run a BCPL
>>> user group).
>>> 
>>> And I met Ritchie and Thompson once, briefly.
>>> 
>>> This is all quite worrying as some of them are now dead.
>>> 
>>
>> I remember when Dennis Ritchie would post on the newsgroup comp.lang.c
>>
>>
>
>Also here. I rememner a post that ascribed to medicaid (I don't really
>understand the US social aid systems) to his continued survival.

I think you're thinking of Medicare--Medicaid is means-tested,
Medicare is for those over 65.  He retired at an age when he was
qualified for Medicare, but I'm pretty sure that his Lucent salary
would have been well above the threshold for Medicaid.

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#215498

J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> writes:

> On 14 Dec 2020 21:24:52 GMT, maus <maus@dmaus.org> wrote:
>
>>On 2020-12-14, Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> wrote:
>>> On 12/13/2020 8:49 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:46:16 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> https://apple.news/A_-wNCMkYTUqUYmLw17kK-A
>>>> 
>>>> I have actually met David Barron on a number of occasions. I have had
>>>> dinner with David Wheeler several times. When I went up to Martin
>>>> Campbell-Kelly (who I had admired for years) at a meeting a couple of
>>>> years ago, I was gobsmacked to find out that he already knew who *I* was!
>>>> I have had a lot of contact with Martin Richards (I used to run a BCPL
>>>> user group).
>>>> 
>>>> And I met Ritchie and Thompson once, briefly.
>>>> 
>>>> This is all quite worrying as some of them are now dead.
>>>> 
>>>
>>> I remember when Dennis Ritchie would post on the newsgroup comp.lang.c
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Also here. I rememner a post that ascribed to medicaid (I don't really
>>understand the US social aid systems) to his continued survival.
>
> I think you're thinking of Medicare--Medicaid is means-tested,
> Medicare is for those over 65.  He retired at an age when he was
> qualified for Medicare, but I'm pretty sure that his Lucent salary
> would have been well above the threshold for Medicaid.

At that time he would have retired with a pension and company paid
health insurance.  So, he'd still be using Medicare but would never
need Medicaid.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#215488

On 2020-12-13, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> https://apple.news/A_-wNCMkYTUqUYmLw17kK-A
>
>


Thanks, very informative.. Funny how the name stratchely came up again.

-- 
greymausg@mail.com

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#216927

On Sunday, December 13, 2020 at 1:46:18 PM UTC+11, Peter Flass wrote:
> https://apple.news/A_-wNCMkYTUqUYmLw17kK-A 
.
Interesting, but the compiler for the reduced Atlas had not eventuated
by 1965 after three years of trying to redesign Algol 60.
.
Meanwhile, Algol was available on the English Electric DEUCE
and KDF9 in 1963.
The DEUCE had 384 words of high speed store, and a magnetic
drum of 8K words.

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