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From: Bart <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: question about linker
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:59:34 +0000
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On 30/11/2024 03:25, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 30.11.2024 02:28, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>>> [...]
>>> I can tell that in my syntax, function definitions start with a line
>>> like this ([...] means optional; | separates choices):
>>>
>>>    ['global'|'export'] 'func'|'proc' name ...
>>>
>>> Which one do you think would be easier? (Function declarations are
>>> generally not used.)
>>
>> I don't care.
>>
>> Yes, languages than C can have better declaration syntax than C does
>> (where "better" is clearly subjective).  Perhaps yours does.  [...]
> 
>  From the various bits and pieces spread around I saw that Bart had
> obviously adopted many syntactical elements of Algol 68, and I wonder
> why he hadn't used just this language (or any "better" language than
> "C") if he dislikes it so much that he even implemented own languages.

It needed to be a lower level language that could be practically 
implemented on a then small machine.

Algol68 implementations were scarce especially on 8-bit systems.

But I also considered it too high level and hard to understand. Even the 
syntax had features I didn't like, like keyword stropping and fiddly 
rules about semicolon placement.

As for better languages than C, there were very few at that level. Even 
C was not so practical: C compilers cost money (I wasn't a programmer, 
my boss wouldn't pay for it!).

There would have been problems just getting it into the machine (since 
on CP/M, every machine used its own disk format). And by the accounts I 
read later on in old Byte magazine articles, C compilers were hopelessly 
slow running on floppy disks. (Perhaps Turbo C excepted.)

By the time C might have been viable, I found that my language was 
preferable.