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From: "Pat Rogers" <progers@acm.org>
Subject: Re: Yet another stupid language war (was: ... the only languages you
 need!!)
Date: 1997/10/31
Message-ID: <01bce627$82afbec0$400d6dce@my-pc.neosoft.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 286217128
References: <34557f2b.1934172@news.mindspring.com>
 <3458D116.2D34@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> <63anc7$75p$1@darla.visi.com>
 <345947D2.D20EF8E9@horvath.com> <63d34m$ap7$1@darla.visi.com>
Organization: Software Arts and Sciences
Newsgroups: 
 comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.lang.pascal.ansi-iso,comp.lang.pascal.misc
Date: 1997-10-31T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Peter Seebach <seebs@plethora.net> wrote in article
<63d34m$ap7$1@darla.visi.com>...

<snip>

> C is portable in a way unlike the way Java is.  Code that doesn't need
> to know what size an int is can be portable among all implementations.
> Code which needs a specific size of object is frequently intrinsically
> not portable by nature.  

Size yes, range no.  It is a shame that one cannot specify the range of an
integer type, or the accuracy of a floating point type in C, for the sake
of portability.  It is nice to have the compiler tell you that your
application requirements cannot be met, rather than not knowing unless a
(possibly obscure) bug is detected.

> C wouldn't want to offer you a guaranteed, 32
> bit type, because that might be horrendously inefficient on a 36-bit
> machine.  :)