Re: Optimization techniques and runtime checks

From: "David Brown" <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2019 6:31 PM




> I have many times noted that C is often a poor choice of language.
> There was a time when it was the best, or only, language suitable for a
> wide range of uses.


That not so. C was never the best (ior only) language.


PL/I and Ada are probably in that category.
PLI has been used for system programming as well as general
purpose programming.


> This is no longer the case. I personally use it
> for small-systems embedded programming, and the runtime efficiency /is/
> important. But for PC programming, I use mostly Python (I used to use
> Delphi more). Pick a language that makes sense for the job, and gives
> the trade-offs that suit your needs.
>
> And often there is no way to handle run-time errors sensibly anyway.
> You don't want your car brakes to give you a message "Your braking
> system has encountered an integer overflow. Please report this error to
> your car dealer". You want the brake software developers to be
> /absolutely/ sure that overflows can't happen - and then there is no
> point in run-time checks.


Wishful thinking. While the code in a program can avoid a hardware overflow
(through appropriate programming), in the event that an overflow occurs,
the program still needs to tell the outside world that an overflow occurred.
[I think you will find that the PL/I that people have used for system programming
is pretty stripped down, like Intel's PL/M and IBM's PL/S. -John]

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