problems/risks due to programming language

[Bertrand Meyer]

>From <Ec.3251 at cs.psu.edu> by melling at cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger):

> Personally, it's the little things like this that make me
> believe that everyone should ABANDON C and move on to C++(two others being
> function prototyping and strong type checking).  Waddya think?  Wither C?


    How can the words ``strong type checking'' be applied to a language
in which any variable may be cast to any type? In which you declare the
type of a generic list element to be ``pointer to characters''?

    C++ only magnifies the problems of C, and it does not even have the
excuses that can be invoked in the case of a 20-year old design such as C.
All the flaws of the older language are still there; amount countless
examples, the break and switch instructions, which were purportedly
responsible for the AT&T breakdown (and started this whole discussion)
are still there exactly as in C. The bug would have occurred identically.

    Then there are new complexities and major new trouble spots -
such as default static binding, which means the guarantee that the
*incorrect* version of an operation will be applied!

-- Bertrand Meyer
bertrand at eiffel.com