"trust C"?  That's not exactly the question.  If the program is properly
designed in nearly any programming language, then it will work properly.
The problem is that it's more difficult to properly design a program in C
than in some other languages.  Since this is an Ada group, I'll mention
Eiffel and Java as other examples, with side thoughts for Smalltalk and
Haskell (well, I don't know much about Haskell, but what I've heard has been
pretty good).  (N.B.:  I'm not claiming that all of these languages are
suitable for system programming.  Merely that they reduce the work of
eliminating bugs.)

The main problem is pointers.  I suppose that the other problems (the need
to type cast frequently, etc.  The lack of reasonable type checking, etc.)
also make a big contribution, but the main problem is pointers and pointer
arithmetic.  This is made necessary by the lack of ADTs (struct-s just don't
make the cut), and by the lack of run-time allocation of array boundaries.

OTOH, gtk-- shows what can be done in C.  It's just much more work to do
things properly.

wv12@my-deja.com wrote:

> What is wrong with doing system programming in C on UNIX?
> UNIX is written in C for crying out loud. If you don't trust
> C, then don't use UNIX.
> Wil
> In article <euar5.4459$cr3.154535@ozemail.com.au>,
>   "berserker" <ber@ser.ker> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice regarding
> programming
> > for UNIX IPC with Ada95. I don't know any equivalent Ada packages to C
> > functions such as 'pipe', 'close', 'popen'... etc. Does anyone have
> any
> > experience in this area, or have a URL which they could direct me to?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Luke B. Andrews.
> >
> >
>
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