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Groups > comp.sys.apple2.programmer > #3669

Re: C vs Asm

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On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 12:26:48 AM UTC-7, James Davis wrote:
> I remember seeing a pamphlet on 'C' at Computerland, Hayward, CA, USA, in 1977-8, at the same time that I was buying my first Apple II Plus.  It was a "Reduced Instruction Set" programming language at the time with just 21 keywords.  Years later there was "Hyper C for the Apple II."

Well, C has also been called the poor man's assembler and/or a high-level assembly language. :-)

C is a such a beautiful, minimal language.  There is something magical about how just expressive and compact the language is.  (The same could be said about LISP in spite of the syntax making my eyes bleed.)

The joke about C being a RISC programming language has some merit to it.  C's strength is that almost every keyword maps very closely 1:1 to assembly -- at least on x86.  You can read a C program and almost instantly get a rough idea of the "code complexity."  In Contradistinction with C++ you get so much extra crap with virtual functions, function overloading, templates, etc. that is almost impossible to _reason_ about what the generated assembly will look like.  One line in C++ could generate hundreds of assembly instructions and you have NO clue.

C's strength is that it is low-level. :-)
C's weakness is that it is low-level. :-(

C's death has been predicted many times -- like a cockroach it will survive until the end of time. i.e. Witness how many fad programming languages like Perl, Python, Ruby,  the original Java compiler, Sun's JVM etc. are all written in C.

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C vs Asm anthonypaulo@gmail.com - 2017-07-06 21:40 -0700
  C vs Asm Antoine Vignau <antoine.vignau@laposte.net> - 2017-07-07 03:03 -0700
  C vs Asm Antoine Vignau <antoine.vignau@laposte.net> - 2017-07-07 03:05 -0700
    C vs Asm Michael Pohoreski <michael.pohoreski@gmail.com> - 2017-07-07 18:24 -0700
      Re: C vs Asm James Davis <JPD.Enterprises@outlook.com> - 2017-07-08 00:26 -0700
        Re: C vs Asm Michael Pohoreski <michael.pohoreski@gmail.com> - 2017-07-08 06:56 -0700
          Re: C vs Asm "Bill Buckels" <bbuckels@mts.net> - 2017-07-10 07:34 -0500
            Re: C vs Asm James Davis <JPD.Enterprises@outlook.com> - 2017-07-10 11:46 -0700
  Re: C vs Asm mmphosis <mmphosis@macgui.com> - 2017-07-07 16:25 +0000
    Re: C vs Asm Michael Pohoreski <michael.pohoreski@gmail.com> - 2017-07-07 17:47 -0700
  Re: C vs Asm James Davis <JPD.Enterprises@outlook.com> - 2017-07-07 13:33 -0700
    Re: C vs Asm anthonypaulo@gmail.com - 2017-07-07 17:54 -0700
      Re: C vs Asm Michael Pohoreski <michael.pohoreski@gmail.com> - 2017-07-07 18:04 -0700
        Re: C vs Asm qkumba <peter.ferrie@gmail.com> - 2017-07-08 08:53 -0700
  C vs Asm Michael Pohoreski <michael.pohoreski@gmail.com> - 2017-07-07 17:45 -0700
    Re: C vs Asm anthonypaulo@gmail.com - 2017-07-07 18:01 -0700
      Re: C vs Asm Michael Pohoreski <michael.pohoreski@gmail.com> - 2017-07-07 18:17 -0700
  Re: C vs Asm "Bill Buckels" <bbuckels@mts.net> - 2017-07-08 07:55 -0500

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