Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz

From	"BartC" <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
References	<kd1gra$vd6$1@dont-email.me> <kd2nts$h7n$2@reader1.panix.com> <kd6tc8$rna$1@dont-email.me>
Subject	Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz
Message-ID	<dODJs.8633$OQ6.2366@fx01.fr7> (permalink)
Organization	virginmedia.com
Date	2013-01-16 20:08 +0000

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"Andrey Tarasevich" <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:kd6tc8$rna$1@dont-email.me...
> On 1/14/2013 9:02 PM, JohnF wrote:

>> C is often called a "portable assembly language" (google that
>> phrase for lots of relevant hits). So this is all pretty
>> well-known stuff already.

> Yet, standardized C retained the crown of "portable assembler" in a 
> different meaning of the term: it works rather well as a back end 
> representation for various higher-level language translators, i.e. instead 
> of translating the higher-level source into assembler it often makes much 
> more sense to translate them into C.

I've never had much luck using C as a target language. Some aspects of C are 
just not quite low-level enough and there can be many constructions, partly 
depending on the source language, not easily expressible in C but trivial in 
actual assembler.

There are advantages: the result is more portable, and you can take 
advantage of a good optimising C compiler to make your job easier. But there 
are some downsides too apart from the ones I've mentioned: having this extra 
dependency on a C compiler system for example.

Directly programming in assembly is like setting things in concrete compared 
with using any higher level language, so that is rarely the best approach. 
But generating assembly code  indirectly is not quite as bad as that.

-- 
Bartc

Thread

"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Lynn McGuire <lmc@winsim.com> - 2013-01-14 11:55 -0600
  Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2013-01-15 05:02 +0000
    Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2013-01-14 22:44 -0800
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Lynn McGuire <lmc@winsim.com> - 2013-01-15 11:20 -0600
        Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2013-01-15 20:06 +0000
          Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-01-15 20:27 +0000
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Lynn McGuire <lmc@winsim.com> - 2013-01-15 17:06 -0600
          Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-17 01:52 -0600
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Lynn McGuire <lmc@winsim.com> - 2013-01-15 17:08 -0600
    Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz falk@rahul.net (Edward A. Falk) - 2013-01-15 22:39 +0000
    Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-16 11:00 -0800
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-16 20:08 +0000
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-01-16 20:09 +0000
        Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Lynn McGuire <lmc@winsim.com> - 2013-01-16 15:36 -0600
        Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2013-01-16 14:01 -0800
          Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-17 02:15 -0600
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2013-01-17 07:15 -0500
              Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2013-01-17 15:09 +0000
                Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-17 14:42 -0600
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-17 12:58 +0000
              Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-17 14:59 -0600
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz falk@rahul.net (Edward A. Falk) - 2013-01-19 23:37 +0000
              Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Lynn McGuire <lmc@winsim.com> - 2013-01-19 18:47 -0600
              Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-01-20 00:49 +0000
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> - 2013-01-18 16:30 +0100
        Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-01-19 19:12 +0000
        Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-19 16:40 -0600
          Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-01-20 00:52 +0000
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-20 01:26 +0000
              Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-20 00:32 -0600
                Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-20 01:42 -0600
                Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-20 13:06 +0000
                Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-20 11:30 -0600
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-19 19:28 -0600
          Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2013-01-19 19:05 -0800
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-20 01:32 -0600
              Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2013-01-20 00:29 -0800
                Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-20 04:24 -0600
  Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-15 23:02 +0000
    Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz William Ahern <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2013-01-15 16:06 -0800
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "Mel Smith" <med_cutout_syntel@aol.com> - 2013-01-15 17:54 -0700
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-17 02:42 -0600
  Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2013-01-18 01:09 -0600
    Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-18 11:45 +0000
      Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2013-01-18 14:43 -0600
        Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2013-01-18 23:31 +0000
          Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2013-01-19 00:23 +0000
            Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2013-01-19 15:17 +1300

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