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From: bart <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: do { quit; } else { }
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2025 15:15:05 +0100
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On 12/04/2025 14:59, James Kuyper wrote:
> bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>> On 12/04/2025 00:59, Keith Thompson wrote:
>>> bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>>>> On 11/04/2025 22:36, Keith Thompson wrote:
>>>>> bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>> Rubbish. Everyone finds C declaration syntax a nightmare.
>>>>> Rubbish.  I find C declaration syntax annoying, not a "nightmare".
>>>>
>>>> Annoying would be having to get letter case or punctuation just right.
>>> [...]
>>>> So, yeah, a 'nightmare' is more apt than 'annoying'.
>>> Bart, bart, bart.
>>
>>> You made a false statement about how *everyone* feels about
>>> C's declaration syntax.
>>
>> So what would be a true statement? That everyone finds it at least
>> midly annoying?
> 
> That there's a wide variety of opinions on the matter, just as there is
> on just about every issue. The fact that C is one of the most widely
> used languages should clue you in to the fact that large numbers of
> people find it far less troublesome than you do,

That says little about the quality of the language.

It says rather more about the lack of choice regarding systems languages 
at this level, especially in previous decades, and also about it being 
foisted on people by those who created Unix.

It's not so easy on that OS to prise apart OS, C language, C compiler, C 
headers and C libraries.

There are a considerable number of design flaws in the language, some 
absolute howlers; that the language is also successful, for whatever 
reasons, doesn't suddenly make it a paragon of good design.

A lot of those flaws make it more unsafe and more error prone than is 
needed.

It also means a huge effort, probably several magnitudes more than would 
have been needed to just fix the language, has gone into tooling to help 
get around many of its shortcomings.