Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dataioDataio.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!entropy!dataio!bright From: bright@dataioDataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: C++ available Message-ID: <845@dataioDataio.UUCP> Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 14:18:33 EST Article-I.D.: dataioDa.845 Posted: Mon Oct 28 14:18:33 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 04:58:35 EST Reply-To: bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright Distribution: net Organization: Data I/O Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 19 In article <2930@sun.uucp> rmarti@sun.uucp (Bob Marti) writes: >When talking to UNIX/C hackers I always got the >impression that the practically non-existent type checking in C was a >blessing rather than a problem ... > >With constants, enumerations (not in K&R!), function argument checking, etc., >C's "successor" C++ all of a sudden looks awfully similar to Modula-2, which >most UNIX/C hackers tell me is absolutely useless. Never mind that most of >these people have never bothered to look into a Modula-2 book, or have even >done some Modula-2 programming to the tune of several thousand lines of code. I believe most people miss the point about C. It is not the weak type checking that is a feature, it is the ability to escape the typing rules when necessary. Most languages with strong type checking forget to allow for an escape from it. This is why such languages tend to have lousy I/O and storage allocation features. I would like to see a language with strong type checking, yet with an easy and natural escape from it (like how casts are done).