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From: rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: C ?= Assembly
Message-ID: <784@cci632.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Dec-86 17:44:19 EST
Article-I.D.: cci632.784
Posted: Fri Dec 19 17:44:19 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 06:09:06 EST
References: <385@unc.unc.UUCP| <981@zeus.UUCP>
Reply-To: rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex B)
Organization: CCI, Communications Systems Division, Rochester, NY
Lines: 25

|(Dan Tilque) writes:
:-(Tim Rentsch) writes:

:-In this regard I should point out that C is only barely a HLL, and
:-should be nominated to replace FORTRAN as the world's most popular
:-assembly language.

|In another forum (comp.lang.c) C has been declared as the language in which
|it is easiest to write portable code.  Does this make it the closest
|thing to the Universal Assembly Language mentioned in the original
|posting?

According to a few of the "folk lore" stories,  C was actually intended
to be a "universal assembler" rather than an HLL.  This is one of the
reasons why "Lint" was not included in the compiler in such a way as
to make unlinted code bomb.  The nice flexible syntax, combined with
lack of strict typing, made it a good "generic assembler" for porting
UNIX among other things.

Remember, much of the "automatic typing" of B and BCPL were taken out of C.

About the only thing they forgot was "absolute addressing" and "pathalogical
calls" :-).

Rex B.