From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,751d508677a5add1 X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsgate.cuhk.edu.hk!news.netfront.net!not-for-mail From: Wilson Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA made me hate programming Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:16:52 -0400 Organization: Netfront http://www.netfront.net/ Message-ID: References: <8f469661-370c-4484-82d8-f1b365455e0f@w12g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.253.226.125 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: adenine.netfront.net 1278019143 35295 68.253.226.125 (1 Jul 2010 21:19:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@netfront.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 21:19:03 +0000 (UTC) To: anon@anon.org User-Agent: Opera Mail/9.51 (Win32) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12111 Date: 2010-07-01T17:16:52-04:00 List-Id: On Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:11:41 -0400, wrote: >Plus: > Reference: "The Development of the C Language" by Dennis M. Ritchie > > As for Algol, Ritchie states: "BCPL, B, and C all fit firmly > in the traditional procedural family typified by Fortran and Algol 60." > He never states that Algol or Fortran was used to build C. > > C is a structured assembly language for the DEC PDP 11. If you doubt this, go back and examine the PDP 11 assembly language. All of that ++ and -- are a standard part of the assembly language addressing modes. In particular, all of those indirect references (pointers) were necessary because the PDP 11 came with a 16 bit instruction set and only 8 bits were allowd for the data address. Fortran, Cobol and every other higher level language of the time omitted pointers because almost all of their addressing was direct. (You might also want to compare C to Bliss another sturctured assembly language for the PDP 11 and then ask which language copied from where. The two languages offer an interesting contrast.) Richie started on the PDP 7, but quickly moved to the PDP 11 and may have forgotten the details that led to the final result. Also, before you quote Richie or any other author, you need to read a peice by Isaak Asimov on how authors are the last people to understand what they did and how they did it. A good author creates much better than he/she knew at the time. Later he/she tries to explain what they did and why; in the process, he/she creates a new,logical story. The author beieves the new story and it sounds so good that almost evryone else does also. Human nature is a funny thing. Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---