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Re: Question about checking the stack

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anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
> My favourite quote of Bjarne Stroustroup (creator of C++) is:
> |As programmers learned C with Classes or C++, they lost the ability to
> |quickly find the ``silly errors'' that creep into C programs through
> |the lack of checking. 

RMS used to say that when he automated some task with software and then
lost the ability to do it manually, that told him that the task must
have been a significant cognitive load, so automating it improved his
productivity by freeing up that much of his mental capacity for other
things.  He's told this story multiple times regarding the automatic
parenthesis balancing in Emacs.  He apparently lost the ability to count
parentheses while coding Lisp, once he programmed Emacs to do it.

> |Thus, as the frequency of run-time errors caused by uncaught argument
> |type errors goes down, their seriousness and the time needed to find
> |them goes up.

We could say that C++ is badly designed because it makes such errors
infrequent rather than impossible.  I know I've made those errors in C++
code and been surprised and annoyed that the compiler didn't catch them.
I do find myself using C++ in preference to C these days.  I don't know
if I've gotten worse at finding the errors while coding, though it's
possible.

> Conversely, when people program in a language with less checking, they
> test earlier and more, as Elizabeth Rather has written, and take other
> precautions, such as more factoring, which makes testing easier.

You're saying that when the language does less checking, developers
spend more time guarding against and testing for errors that a
differently designed language could find instantly and automatically.
Is that supposed to weigh in favor of the automatic checks, or against
them?

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Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-11-24 22:31 -0800
  Re: Question about checking the stack Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2015-11-25 07:46 +0100
    Re: Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-11-24 23:09 -0800
      Re: Question about checking the stack Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2015-11-25 09:16 +0200
  Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-24 23:19 -0800
    Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-24 22:05 -1000
      Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-25 13:17 -0800
        Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-25 13:58 -1000
          Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-25 18:00 -0800
            Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-25 17:44 -1000
              Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-25 23:05 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-25 21:38 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2015-11-26 09:49 +0200
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-25 22:42 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-11-26 14:51 +0000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-30 13:00 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-11-30 21:54 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2015-12-01 04:24 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-12-01 05:07 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2015-12-01 06:02 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-12-01 19:30 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2015-12-01 14:47 +0000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-01 11:56 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Alfred Singlestone <vitonis@gmail.com> - 2015-12-03 05:48 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-12-03 09:24 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-03 21:10 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-12-03 20:52 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-04 06:08 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Gerry Jackson <gerry@jackson9000.fsnet.co.uk> - 2015-12-01 20:32 +0000
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-12-01 19:32 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2015-12-01 08:18 +0100
                Re: Question about checking the stack Alfred Singlestone <vitonis@gmail.com> - 2015-11-27 06:25 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2015-11-28 17:55 +0200
                Re: Question about checking the stack mhx@iae.nl - 2015-11-28 08:24 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2015-11-28 20:54 +0200
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-28 11:32 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-28 19:17 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2015-11-29 07:30 +0200
                Re: Question about checking the stack Alfred Singlestone <vitonis@gmail.com> - 2015-11-29 09:41 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack minforth@arcor.de - 2015-11-30 01:48 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-30 08:03 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-11-28 19:09 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-26 00:03 -0800
                Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-11-25 22:49 -1000
                Re: Question about checking the stack hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-11-26 10:59 -0800
            Re: Question about checking the stack franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-11-25 21:03 -0800
          Re: Question about checking the stack Alfred Singlestone <vitonis@gmail.com> - 2015-11-27 06:14 -0800
  Re: Question about checking the stack "Rod Pemberton" <boo@fasdfrewar.cdm> - 2015-11-25 04:54 -0500
  Re: Question about checking the stack François <francois.ganza@wanadoo.fr> - 2015-11-25 03:09 -0800
  Re: Question about checking the stack anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-11-25 12:53 +0000
    Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-25 09:02 -0800
      Re: Question about checking the stack Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-11-25 18:53 +0100
        Re: Question about checking the stack Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-11-25 12:01 -0800
      Re: Question about checking the stack anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-11-25 17:26 +0000
  Re: Question about checking the stack François <francois.ganza@wanadoo.fr> - 2015-11-25 13:51 -0800
  Re: Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-11-28 09:29 -0800
    Re: Question about checking the stack Alfred Singlestone <vitonis@gmail.com> - 2015-11-28 12:03 -0800
  Re: Question about checking the stack François <francois.ganza@wanadoo.fr> - 2015-12-01 06:15 -0800
  Re: Question about checking the stack Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-01 14:05 -0800
    Re: Question about checking the stack "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-12-01 19:35 -1000
    Re: Question about checking the stack dunno <dunno@dunno.dunno> - 2015-12-03 03:40 +0000

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