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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: A Famous Security Bug
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 09:37:40 +0100
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On 24/03/2024 23:42, Michael S wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Mar 2024 13:49:43 -0700
> Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>> [...]
>>> But what people want are the conveniences and familiarity of a HLL,
>>> without the bloody-mindedness of an optimising C compiler.
>> [...]
>>
>> Exactly which people want that?
>>
>> The evidence suggests that, while some people undoubtedly want that
>> (and it's a perfectly legitimate desire), there isn't enough demand
>> to induce anyone to actually produce such a thing and for it to catch
>> on.
> 
> Such things are produced all the time. A yes, they fail to catch on.
> The most recent [half-hearted] attempt that didn't realize yet that it
> has no chance is called zig.
> 

Languages like this are usually better in some ways than C (there's 
plenty of scope for that with C - we can do a better job of designing a 
language now than 50 years ago, not least because we can expect more 
from tools than we could 50 years ago).

But they can never cover everything people want - people want 
contradictory things.  Thus for everyone (except perhaps the language 
designers themselves) such new languages have big disadvantages as well 
as big advantages, and they will be missing some key features, seen from 
that person's perspective.

And their execution models are invariably either only vaguely defined, 
or defined in terms of behaviour with an "as-if" rule to allow 
optimisation.  Which means they are no better than C for people who 
think compilers should be blind translators.  (And it also means that 
they will be no worse than C for people who understand more about 
programming languages and compilers, and for those that either don't 
know or don't care.)


Zig is a language I've looked at, and it does have some nice things. 
But it will be a /long/ time before it is something I could consider 
using for my work, so it would be hobby only.  And of course it has made 
some design decisions that I think are wrong, and are a big step down 
from the current leading alternative to C in many fields - C++.


>> Developers have had decades to define and implement the kind of
>> language you're talking about.  Why haven't they?
>>
> 
> Because C is juggernaut?
> 

Yes, it has a /huge/ momentum.  That means that even if a new language 
comes along that is better than C in every way, it has to be /much/ 
better to make it worth the effort to change.  Rust is making a fair 
stab at this - it is no easy job.