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| From | glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz |
| Date | 2013-01-16 20:09 +0000 |
| Organization | Aioe.org NNTP Server |
| Message-ID | <kd71ef$afm$1@speranza.aioe.org> (permalink) |
| References | <kd1gra$vd6$1@dont-email.me> <kd2nts$h7n$2@reader1.panix.com> <kd6tc8$rna$1@dont-email.me> |
Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> wrote: > On 1/14/2013 9:02 PM, JohnF wrote: (snip) >> 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. > While it is generally true, the actual meaning of that > characterization is not exactly unambiguous. > C language was true "portable assembler" - i.e. a tool for directly > expressing the programmer's intent in near-machine language - mostly in > its nascent stages, as described in "C Reference Manual" and the first > edition of "C Programming Language". That was indeed a true "assembler". > The standardized C was considerably reworked and became more abstracted > from the actual machines. In many cases when one refers to it as a > "portable assembler" in the above sense of the term, it usually means > that one simply lacks proper understanding of the true abstraction level > built into the language features. Yes it is more abstract, but if you are careful with what opeations you use, then you are still pretty close. But most good high-level langauges now include array operations. You can say a=b+c; where a, b, and c are arrays (of any rank) with appropriate dimensions, and it will add them element by element. C still does not have array operations, and with the way C uses pointers, it isn't so easy to see how to add them. > 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. Much of the time, you can figure out exactly, or close enough, what assembler code would be generated. (And the register allocation is probably better than most assembler programmers would do.) -- glen
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"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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