From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

In article <10tpt9j$c3i4$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 10/05/2026 05:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[snip]
What makes you think that I'd need to write an own language given that
there's a plethora of languages of all kinds and paradigms existing.

So where's the one that works like mine?

I mean, Rust does exactly what you were just describing.

And why are there so many new ones still appearing? Most of them you
will not know about.

Consider the possibility that you may be unique in the world in
possessing the combination of requirements and aesthetic
judgement that makes you feel you need a language like yours.

As for new languages, there are a number of reasons. Most of
them are not particularly relevant here.

At this point, you may consider doing what Keith suggested, and
moving further discussion of your language to comp.lang.misc.
Here, I'll start by cross-posting to that group for you.

- Dan C.

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 10/05/2026 14:05, Dan Cross wrote:

In article <10tpt9j$c3i4$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 10/05/2026 05:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[snip]
What makes you think that I'd need to write an own language given that
there's a plethora of languages of all kinds and paradigms existing.

So where's the one that works like mine?

I mean, Rust does exactly what you were just describing.

Rust could hardly be more different than mine.

And why are there so many new ones still appearing? Most of them you
will not know about.

Consider the possibility that you may be unique in the world in
possessing the combination of requirements and aesthetic
judgement that makes you feel you need a language like yours.

My language fills the same niche that C does.

I don't have much of a problem with the things that C can do, but with
how it does it, its syntax, its ancient baggage, its quirks, its
folklore, its Unix-centric ecosystem, its pointless UBs, its insistence
in working with every oddball processor, its solving every shortcoming
with macros, its adherents who will defend every misfeature to the death...

Maybe the answer is to just create my own language?! I did exactly that,
and didn't to have to deal with C for 10-15 years, but you can't get
away from it because it's everywhere.

It is also frustrating looking at C forums and people thinking they are
too stupid to grasp something when it's language that could have been
better.

As for new languages, there are a number of reasons. Most of
them are not particularly relevant here.

At this point, you may consider doing what Keith suggested, and
moving further discussion of your language to comp.lang.misc.

Sure, a pretty much dead group.


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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

I don't have much of a problem with the things that C can do, but with
how it does it, its syntax, its ancient baggage, its quirks, its
folklore, its Unix-centric ecosystem, its pointless UBs, its
insistence in working with every oddball processor, its solving every shortcoming with macros, its adherents who will defend every
misfeature to the death...

You're mostly wrong about that last point. Many of us spend a
great deal of time and effort here *explaining* how C is defined
and how best to use it.

To explain is not to defend. What will it take for you to understand
that?

[...]

It is also frustrating looking at C forums and people thinking they
are too stupid to grasp something when it's language that could have
been better.

(I'm going to assume I parsed that sentence correctly.)

Nobody has said that C couldn't have been better. But it could
hardly have been more successful. As Dennis Ritchie himself said,
"C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success."

[...]
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

In article <10ttvng$1j579$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 10/05/2026 14:05, Dan Cross wrote:

In article <10tpt9j$c3i4$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 10/05/2026 05:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[snip]
What makes you think that I'd need to write an own language given that >>>> there's a plethora of languages of all kinds and paradigms existing.

So where's the one that works like mine?

I mean, Rust does exactly what you were just describing.

Rust could hardly be more different than mine.

You were describing what Rust calls, `include_str!` and
`include_bytes!`. That's what I was referring to.

https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/macro.include_str.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/macro.include_bytes.html

And why are there so many new ones still appearing? Most of them you
will not know about.

Consider the possibility that you may be unique in the world in
possessing the combination of requirements and aesthetic
judgement that makes you feel you need a language like yours.

My language fills the same niche that C does.

I don't have much of a problem with the things that C can do, but with
how it does it, its syntax, its ancient baggage, its quirks, its
folklore, its Unix-centric ecosystem, its pointless UBs, its insistence
in working with every oddball processor, its solving every shortcoming
with macros, its adherents who will defend every misfeature to the death...

Maybe the answer is to just create my own language?! I did exactly that,
and didn't to have to deal with C for 10-15 years, but you can't get
away from it because it's everywhere.

So like I said, you may be unique in the world in possessing the
combination of requirements _and aesthetic judgement_ that makes
you feel you need a language exactly like yours.

I think you'll find very few "adherents who will defend every
misfeature to the death."

It is also frustrating looking at C forums and people thinking they are
too stupid to grasp something when it's language that could have been >better.

The problem you keep encountering here, specifically, is that by
your own admission you do not know C, the language, well enough
to accurately understand what would have made it a "language
that could have been better."

As for new languages, there are a number of reasons. Most of
them are not particularly relevant here.

At this point, you may consider doing what Keith suggested, and
moving further discussion of your language to comp.lang.misc.

Sure, a pretty much dead group.

Maybe you could liven it up.

- Dan C.

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 12/05/2026 03:40, Dan Cross wrote:

In article <10ttvng$1j579$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

On 10/05/2026 14:05, Dan Cross wrote:

In article <10tpt9j$c3i4$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote: >>>> On 10/05/2026 05:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[snip]
What makes you think that I'd need to write an own language given that >>>>> there's a plethora of languages of all kinds and paradigms existing.

So where's the one that works like mine?

I mean, Rust does exactly what you were just describing.

Rust could hardly be more different than mine.

You were describing what Rust calls, `include_str!` and
`include_bytes!`. That's what I was referring to.

https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/macro.include_str.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/macro.include_bytes.html

OK, so some specific features. I don't know Rust, other than when I
first starting testing its compiler in 2021, it was one of the slowest
I'd ever tried.

However it is interesting that it includes both 'str' and 'byte'
versions which mirror my 'strinclude/sinclude' and 'binclude'.

C23 now has '#embed', although its operation is much clunkier. To try it though I needed to download a new version, and used 16.x. I was
interested in how fast it could deal with large embedded data, and tried
this program:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

char str[] = {
#embed "big.txt"
,0
};

int main(void) {
printf("%zu\n", sizeof(str));
printf("%zu\n", strlen(str));
}

'big.txt' contains 100 million 'A's, not zero-terminated. The ',0' will
do that (I understand attributes can be used to control that).

As for speed, I was pleasantly surprised: compiling this took 5 seconds.

(While #embed notionally produces a token list like 65,65,...., it must
handle it internally far more efficiently, especially within the
intermediate assembly.)

Still, with my language where it looks like this:

[]char str = sinclude("big.txt") # sinclude adds the terminator

it took only one second. (However, I don't use intermediate ASM so it
can be streamlined.)

It is also frustrating looking at C forums and people thinking they are
too stupid to grasp something when it's language that could have been
better.

The problem you keep encountering here, specifically, is that by
your own admission you do not know C, the language, well enough
to accurately understand what would have made it a "language
that could have been better."

That's like saying I can't compare one car with another, because I don't understand the internals or rationale of the one I criticise.

I do however understand the tasks I expect them to do, and can speak
about my experiences of using each.

So I don't need to care why that car behaves as it does; doing so will
not make the experience any better!

I brought up a Model T analogy for C the other day, and it is apt.

This actually applies to anybody; they don't need to be involved in
making their own vehicles. But if they are, then they will be in a
position to fix shortcomings.

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 12/05/2026 02:37, Keith Thompson wrote:

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

I don't have much of a problem with the things that C can do, but with
how it does it, its syntax, its ancient baggage, its quirks, its
folklore, its Unix-centric ecosystem, its pointless UBs, its
insistence in working with every oddball processor, its solving every
shortcoming with macros, its adherents who will defend every
misfeature to the death...

You're mostly wrong about that last point. Many of us spend a
great deal of time and effort here *explaining* how C is defined
and how best to use it.

I don't see the connection with my point. I haven't said that people
don't explain things.

But it does seem that every poor feature in C is an invaluable asset to somebody, that must never be fixed.

So the inconvenience of how 'switch' works is excused because
/sometimes/ you need fallthrough, or the one time in a thousand you need Duff's device.

To explain is not to defend. What will it take for you to understand
that?

[...]

It is also frustrating looking at C forums and people thinking they
are too stupid to grasp something when it's language that could have
been better.

(I'm going to assume I parsed that sentence correctly.)

Nobody has said that C couldn't have been better. But it could
hardly have been more successful. As Dennis Ritchie himself said,
"C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success."

Yeah, it's one of the great mysteries. Even half a century ago, there
were big companies and lots of clever people, who could have cranked out
a suitable systems language of equal capability to C in their sleep, but
with fewer rough edges.

I wonder why they didn't? Maybe they would have been aimimg too high
even then? (Instead we got Smalltalk and Ada.)

[...]

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On Tue, 12 May 2026 22:32:30 +0100
Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

Even half a century ago, there were big companies and lots of clever
people, who could have cranked out a suitable systems language of
equal capability to C in their sleep, but with fewer rough edges.

I wonder why they didn't?

I am reminded of Seymour Cray's rebuttal to Tom Watson:
"I understand that in the laboratory developing this system there are
only 34 people, 'including the janitor.' Of these, 14 are engineers and
4 are programmers, and only one has a Ph. D., a relatively junior
programmer. To the outsider, the laboratory appeared to be cost
conscious, hard working and highly motivated.
Contrasting this modest effort with our own vast development
activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry
leadership position by letting someone else offer the worldrCOs most
powerful computer."
"It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

On 12/05/2026 02:37, Keith Thompson wrote:

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

<snip>

Nobody has said that C couldn't have been better. But it could
hardly have been more successful. As Dennis Ritchie himself said,
"C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success."

Yeah, it's one of the great mysteries. Even half a century ago, there
were big companies and lots of clever people, who could have cranked out
a suitable systems language of equal capability to C in their sleep, but >with fewer rough edges.

Those clever people _were_ cranking out suitable systems languages
by the bucketful. PL/1, Algol derivatives, proprietary internal
languages (Burroughs SPRITE and BPL languages), HP-3000 SPL (Systems Programming Language - I used SPL in the late 70s) and
on the academic side, modula, ADA, Pascal (yes, it could be
a systems programming language, c.f. VAX-11 Pascal).

They weren't aiming at your 70's target 8080 processors, although
there was PL/M and a few others for the 8080 at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/M

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 2026-05-13 00:28, John Ames wrote:

On Tue, 12 May 2026 22:32:30 +0100
Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

Even half a century ago, there were big companies and lots of clever
people, who could have cranked out a suitable systems language of
equal capability to C in their sleep, but with fewer rough edges.

I wonder why they didn't?

I am reminded of Seymour Cray's rebuttal to Tom Watson:

"I understand that in the laboratory developing this system there are
only 34 people, 'including the janitor.' Of these, 14 are engineers and
4 are programmers, and only one has a Ph. D., a relatively junior
programmer. To the outsider, the laboratory appeared to be cost
conscious, hard working and highly motivated.

Contrasting this modest effort with our own vast development
activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry
leadership position by letting someone else offer the worldrCOs most
powerful computer."

"It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."

Hmm.. - I wonder what the amount of involved people is supposed to
tell us here? - There's sophisticated languages where international
committees with many members spent huge efforts, and there's also
extremely ambitious languages where less than a handful of experts
designed and developed it. - I mean, now concerning "C", does that
in any way makes the difference or explains anything concerning the
actual "C" design (with its strengths and with its shortcomings and
inherent deficiencies)?

My (very subjective) impression is that "leadership positions" were
primarily defined by other factors the past decades; spanning from
commercial market-power to thorough marketing activities.

Janis

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 2026-05-13 01:21, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

On 12/05/2026 02:37, Keith Thompson wrote:

[...]

Yeah, it's one of the great mysteries. Even half a century ago, there
were big companies and lots of clever people, who could have cranked out
a suitable systems language of equal capability to C in their sleep, but
with fewer rough edges.

Those clever people _were_ cranking out suitable systems languages
by the bucketful. PL/1, Algol derivatives, proprietary internal
languages (Burroughs SPRITE and BPL languages), HP-3000 SPL (Systems Programming Language - I used SPL in the late 70s) and
on the academic side, modula, ADA, Pascal (yes, it could be
a systems programming language, c.f. VAX-11 Pascal).

[...]

I wonder about why you put Ada just in the "academic box".

Janis

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:

On 2026-05-13 01:21, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

On 12/05/2026 02:37, Keith Thompson wrote:

[...]

Yeah, it's one of the great mysteries. Even half a century ago, there
were big companies and lots of clever people, who could have cranked out >>> a suitable systems language of equal capability to C in their sleep, but >>> with fewer rough edges.

Those clever people _were_ cranking out suitable systems languages
by the bucketful. PL/1, Algol derivatives, proprietary internal
languages (Burroughs SPRITE and BPL languages), HP-3000 SPL (Systems
Programming Language - I used SPL in the late 70s) and
on the academic side, modula, ADA, Pascal (yes, it could be
a systems programming language, c.f. VAX-11 Pascal).

[...]

I wonder about why you put Ada just in the "academic box".

Because the first ADA compiler I used came from NYU. :-)

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:

[...]

I wonder about why you put Ada just in the "academic box".

Because the first ADA compiler I used came from NYU. :-)

It's Ada, not ADA. It's a person's name, not an acronym.

And along with C, it's one of the few languages whose name is a
hexadecimal palindrome.
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

In article <10u2jgv$2t96p$5@kst.eternal-september.org>,
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:

[...]

I wonder about why you put Ada just in the "academic box".

Because the first ADA compiler I used came from NYU. :-)

It's Ada, not ADA. It's a person's name, not an acronym.

Perhaps Scott was alluding to its design reminding one of the
era in which only upper case characters were available on one's
teletype. :-D

- Dan C.

(I'm kidding again. I actually don't think Ada is a terrible
language.)
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