Third public review of X3J11 C

[Dan Schlitt]

In article <4203 at adobe.COM> burgett at steel.UUCP (Michael Burgett) writes:
>These discussions about the flaws of the C language in dealing with complex
>floating point ops, and the *failure* of X3J11 to solicit input and rectify
>these things are getting _old_....
>
>1) C is not now, has not been in the past, and (hopefully) will not be in
>the future, a lanugage designed for writing scientific applications
>
>2) C was designed and implemented to remove the onus of using assembly language
>to write operating systems, utilities, device drivers and the ilk.  In this
>regard, it has no equal.
>
>In light of 1 & 2... where's the beef?  C is doing what it is designed to do,
>and from what I've seen of the ANSI standard, will continue to do so.  My hat
>off to the committee for not bowing to public pressure to try to make C all
>things to all people (can you say PL/1... I knew you could.)
>
>you just might have to learn more than one language.... (shock! disbelief!!)
>
If, as you claim, C is designed to "remove the onus of using assembly
language" then you should take note that that is frequently what must
be done to get good numerical code -- write in assembly language.

If floating point isn't necessary for writing your operating systems,
device drivers, etc.  then why not take ALL of the floating point
stuff out of C.  Then the numerical people will go away and not bother
you.  On the other hand .... if you need the floating point then do it
right.  That is all many of us are asking for.  If you don't use
floating point then the changes shouldn't get in your way anyhow.

There is no need to make C into FORTRAN or PL/1.  I personally don't
see the need for adding  the fortran ** to C.  The people who argued
for a function call made good _numerical analysis_ sense in their
arguments.  But remember that the numerical people weren't the only
ones who wanted to add useless binary operators to the language.

MY hat is off to the committee for making a number of changes in C
which will make it do floating point better.