Re: if UNIX then USE_C ?? (was: Reasons for drop)

[kassover@jupiter.crd.ge.com (David Kassover)]

In article <34196@news.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
...
>The most obvious way in which a particular OS is oriented towards a
>particular language is when it comes to data being passed between
>application programs and OS routines.  Unix kernel routines and system
>library routines expect things like null-terminated strings and structures
>laid out the way that system's C compiler lays them.  Programs written in
>other languages often need to transform data when passing it into and out
>of the OS.
>
>Another area of language bias is documentation.  Unix manual pages for
>subroutines generally describe the invocation mechanism and argument types
>in C syntax.
>
...
 
C and Unix go together because they were implemented together,
the C language to make the writing of the OS (which, after all,
is just another computer program) easier.
 
 
Using standard libraries (all that means is that *someone else*
has implemented the interface from particular hardware to the
language specification  (Go ahead, flame.  I know that's
simplistic)).  If one is writing a truly embedded system, then
it's easy to fulfill the requirements of the Requirements and
Functional specifications (assuming you have them...).
 
On the other hand, if you're trying to implement a software
system where there are specific (or specified) desires to take
advantage of a particular platform feature, or that is intented
to by interacted with by humans, you have to start getting into
language extensions or hardware features, etc.



Back to Ada vs. C.  Ada, as specified, does a rather complete job
of eliminating bugs caused by single character typos.  (Ref the
DO statement problem)  One which it will not catch is that case
where two variables whose names differ by one character are both
declared in the same scope.
 
C, on the other hand, does still have cases where the placement
of a semicolon in the wrong place will alter the meaning of a
program without having a failed compile (Yes, I know Lint can ask
about things like this.  I know some compilers warn about
assumptions they are making.  ANyone out there ever use PL/C?).