Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support

On 08/04/18 14:21, Derek M. Jones wrote:
>> Modern popular languages are neither powerful nor easy to learn.
>
> What evidence do you have for this?


The C standard is over 700 pages: not exactly an easy read. C has 199
different cases of undefined behaviour that the programmer has to
memorise and avoid using if they want to write conformant and
compatible code.


C++ is even more popular than C but adds layers more complexity
on top of the complexity of C: "If you think C++ is not overly
complicated, just what is a protected abstract virtual base pure
virtual private destructor, and when was the last time you needed one?"
(Tom Cargill, C++ Journal, Fall 1990).


An iostream-based "hello, world" program requires the GNU C++ compiler
to parse 718K bytes.


See also: http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/defective.html


Yet, for all that complexity, "C combines the power of assembly language
with the flexibility of assembley language"! To do anything useful
in C or C++ one needs to use large numbers of functions from
various libraries. The GNU C library, which contains basic low-level
functions such as string handling, I/O, memory allocation etc,
has a manual which is 1,174 pages long.


On the other hand, the Revised^4 Report on the Algorithmic Language
Scheme ("Dedicated to the Memory of ALGOL 60") is only a 55 page manual
but it includes the full syntax and semantics of the language.


--
Martin


Dr Martin Ward | Email: martin@gkc.org.uk | http://www.gkc.org.uk
G.K.Chesterton site: http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc | Erdos number: 4


[In fairness, a lot of the 700 pages of the C standard are about
the library. In my copy of C99, pages 9-163 are about the
language, pages 164-401 are about the library, and then there's
about 150 pages of appendices. But it's certainly a lot bigger
than the language that K&R wrote about in the 1970s. -John]

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