| ??? 06/15/07 02:36 Read: times |
#140813 - Upside down Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Richard Erlacher said:
I think the reason 'C' is so popular is because it is widely used in educational institutions, heaven knows why. Pascal was designed for education, and it does that pretty well. 'C', on the other hand, discourages rigor and discipline, both of which are necessary for any useful work. On the contrary, C requires rigor and discipline precisely because it is so easy to shoot oneself in the foot. But which would you rather have, a car that can do 130 mph (whether you need it or not) and can accelerate like a bat out of hell, or a car with limiters that has a max speed of 20 mph and accelerates like grandma in her wheelchair? If everyone were disciplined enough to delay writing the code until the requirements were documented and signed, and then wrote the code to match the reuquirements... That's pretty much the definition of a good programmer, isn't it? And it applies no matter what language one uses. but too much code is written before the requirements are agreed upon and too little of that code is justified. That's the fault of ignorant PHBs, not programmers. ...its real effect was to convince me that 'C' was not a tool I'd find acceptable for use in profesisonal-quality work, and that was because it disocurages rigor and discipline. See above. C encourages and requires discipline. Any "programmer" lacking discipline should not code in C, and IMHO should not code at all. |
