In defence of C (was:Re:Anybody else tried FreeBasic (aka fbc)?)

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Walter Dnes wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 05:54:07PM -0400, John Vetterli wrote
>
> > If you find there's a task that's difficult in C you can probably
> > find a library to make it easier.  People writing text-processing
> > applications aren't sticking to the string primitives.
>
>   FreeBasic is written in C.  So I technically am using a C library when
> I use FreeBasic.  Does that make you happy?

Not really.  FreeBasic is a C application, not library.  It does
contain a runtime library too, but you are not using it directly,
the compiler is generating code that uses that library.

>   Look, I'm not attacking C.  It was designed as a system implementation
> language for unix.  It does what it was designed to do, and does it very
> well.  Trying to use it beyond its intended purpose is where you run
> into problems.

If you find yourself arguing about how C is not suitable for some
task, then you probably don't have a complete set of languages in
your toolbox.  These days C and Python do all you need for
regular application development (not huge applications, not web
applications).  When you know Python for example, you never argue
that C is not suitable for text processing, you simply use
Python.

--behdad
http://behdad.org/

"Commandment Three says Do Not Kill, Amendment Two says Blood Will Spill"
	-- Dan Bern, "New American Language"
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