Comments vs. Comparison

[Dana Myers]

Richard Harter <g-rh at cca.CCA.COM> writes on Date: 8 Mar 88 08:40:37 GMT:
>In article <1354 at laidbak.UUCP> daveb at laidbak.UUCP (Dave Burton) writes:
>>In article <25284 at cca.CCA.COM> g-rh at CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>>>Here is another feature for D whose absence in C has been irksome to
>>>me -- I would like to be able to return several items from a function.
>>>... But how do I get stuff back.
>>>... Things which are returned need a mechanism equivalent to pass
>>>by address.
>
>>Please don't design D until you understand C.
>
>Er, Dave, may I suggest it is inadvisable to make remarks such as
>"Please don't design D until you understand C".  I am not a C guru;
>I read with respect the comments of people such as Chris Torek and
>Henry Spencer.  I don't need to be a complete expert in the language.
>None-the-less I have been programming for 27 years, writing C for six
>of those years, have written ~100,000 lines of C, and have dealt with
>the vagaries of C implementations on a variety of operating systems.  

  C'mon! Let me restate Dave's comment - "Please don't design a successor
to C until you understand C". I think Dave's comment is perfectly advisable.
To design a purported descendant of a given language, one must first have
a complete understanding of what the ancestor language is. A working knowledge
of a language is far different than a complete comprehension of a language.

  On the other hand, you may feel free to design any language you want, without
a complete knowledge of C. In this case, don't feel as though your language is
a successor to C, though it may appear a lot alike.


 I mean, afterall, would you consider designing a successor to Unix without
fully understanding it in the first place? Or, does using the C libraries make
one a Unix system expert? ;-) As Henry sez', 'Those who don't understand Unix
are condemned to reinvent it, poorly'. The same could be true of anything, even
C.

Dana H. Myers
Locus Computing Corp.
Santa Monica, CA