«

"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz
http://damienkatz.net/2013/01/the_un...ness_of_c.html

" It's because C is so damn successful as an
abstraction over the underlying machine and making
that high level, it's made most low level languages
irrelevant. C is that good at what it does."

Lynn

Lynn McGuire <> wrote:
> "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz
> http://damienkatz.net/2013/01/the_un...ness_of_c.html
>
> " It's because C is so damn successful as an
> abstraction over the underlying machine and making
> that high level, it's made most low level languages
> irrelevant. C is that good at what it does."
> Lynn

C is often called a "portable assembly language" (google that
phrase for lots of relevant hits). So this is all pretty
well-known stuff already.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: where j=john and f=forkosh )

On 1/15/2013 12:44 AM, William Ahern wrote:
> JohnF <> wrote:
>> Lynn McGuire <> wrote:
>>> "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz
>>> http://damienkatz.net/2013/01/the_un...ness_of_c.html
>>>
>>> " It's because C is so damn successful as an
>>> abstraction over the underlying machine and making
>>> that high level, it's made most low level languages
>>> irrelevant. C is that good at what it does."
>>> Lynn
>
>> C is often called a "portable assembly language" (google that
>> phrase for lots of relevant hits). So this is all pretty
>> well-known stuff already.
>
> The author would probably disagree with the implications of such a
> description.
>
> That we have a hard time thinking of lower level languages we'd use
> instead of C isn't because C is low level. It's because C is so damn
> successful as an abstraction over the underlying machine and making
> that high level, it's made most low level languages irrelevant. C is
> that good at what it does.

I totally agree. C is an awesome abstraction
of all machine languages. C is awesome at
what it does.

Lynn

On Tue, 2013-01-15, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 1/15/2013 12:44 AM, William Ahern wrote:
....
>> The author would probably disagree with the implications of such a
>> description.
>>
>> That we have a hard time thinking of lower level languages we'd use
>> instead of C isn't because C is low level. It's because C is so damn
>> successful as an abstraction over the underlying machine and making
>> that high level, it's made most low level languages irrelevant. C is
>> that good at what it does.
>
> I totally agree. C is an awesome abstraction
> of all machine languages.

Either that, or there's little chance of success if you create a
machine, no matter how good, if it cannot run C efficiently.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

Jorgen Grahn <grahn+> wrote:

(snip)
> Either that, or there's little chance of success if you create a
> machine, no matter how good, if it cannot run C efficiently.

For many years, that was true for Fortran. Maybe it still is.

For one, C allowed either of two possibilities when dividing
with negative numbers. Fortran allowed only one.

If any hardware generated the result that Fortran didn't allow,
it would have been less efficient for Fortran, and might not
have sold as well.

Also, my always favorite example is segment selector zero for protected
mode on the 80286 and later intel processors.

-- glen

In article <kd2nts$h7n$>,
JohnF <> wrote:
>
>C is often called a "portable assembly language" (google that
>phrase for lots of relevant hits). So this is all pretty
>well-known stuff already.

That's how it was described to me when I first heard of it --
a high-level language with the power of assembly language. I
was pretty skeptical at first.

--
-Ed Falk,
http://thespamdiaries.blogspot.com/

"Lynn McGuire" <> wrote in message
news:kd1gra$vd6$...
> "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz
> http://damienkatz.net/2013/01/the_un...ness_of_c.html
>
> " It's because C is so damn successful as an
> abstraction over the underlying machine and making
> that high level, it's made most low level languages
> irrelevant. C is that good at what it does."

"Callable from Anywhere

C has a standardized application binary interface (ABI) that is supported by
every OS, language and platform in existence."

Been carried away a bit by his own enthusiasm I think..

--
Bartc

On 1/15/2013 2:27 PM, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>> Either that, or there's little chance of success if you create a
>> machine, no matter how good, if it cannot run C efficiently.
>
> For many years, that was true for Fortran. Maybe it still is.
>
> For one, C allowed either of two possibilities when dividing
> with negative numbers. Fortran allowed only one.
>
> If any hardware generated the result that Fortran didn't allow,
> it would have been less efficient for Fortran, and might not
> have sold as well.
>
> Also, my always favorite example is segment selector zero for protected
> mode on the 80286 and later intel processors.
>
> -- glen

Many of the PLC machines do not have a fortran
(4, 77, 90, 95, 2003, etc) compiler. You have
to translate your code to c using f2c (crap) or
for_c (a purchase tool).

Lynn

On 1/15/2013 12:44 AM, William Ahern wrote:
> JohnF <> wrote:
>> Lynn McGuire <> wrote:
>>> "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C" by Damien Katz
>>> http://damienkatz.net/2013/01/the_un...ness_of_c.html
>>>
>>> " It's because C is so damn successful as an
>>> abstraction over the underlying machine and making
>>> that high level, it's made most low level languages
>>> irrelevant. C is that good at what it does."
>>> Lynn
>
>> C is often called a "portable assembly language" (google that
>> phrase for lots of relevant hits). So this is all pretty
>> well-known stuff already.
>
> The author would probably disagree with the implications of such a
> description.
>
> That we have a hard time thinking of lower level languages we'd use
> instead of C isn't because C is low level. It's because C is so damn
> successful as an abstraction over the underlying machine and making
> that high level, it's made most low level languages irrelevant. C is
> that good at what it does.

I find it amazing that C works well on both
non-stack and stack machines. OF course, so
does Fortran but it has it's own many
peculiarities and failings.

Lynn

Damien Katz replied to me:

"Thanks for the feedback. Languages that compile down to C are very
portable. Cool! "

(in response to my email to him several days ago about the Harbour language
(or Hi-C) )

-Mel Smith