🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
For no particular reason, I am feeling nostalgic for Turbo Pascal.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
I'm also feeling nostalgic for MPW Pascal, and the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop in general.
I was sad when Apple ditched Pascal for C.
Pascal was not perfect, by any means. I've programmed professionally in Ada, one of Pascal's successors, and liked it pretty well.
I wanted to use Modula 3, "an elegant weapon for a more civilized age," and dabbled in it a little, but there was no market for it.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
People sometimes ask what my favorite programming language is. Probably Smalltalk, except that I prefer strong typing, and Smalltalk wants to be its own world, like FORTH, rather than being used to create "native" applications. I usually reply that I have no favorite, because all programming languages suck. Some suck less than others.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
C was OK as a systems programming language for the PDP-11 in the 1970s. The minimalism that was absolutely _required_ for that has not been a benefit to good software design practices since the mid-1980s.
As the late, great C.A.R. Hoare said of ALGOL 60, "Here is a language so far ahead of its time that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but also on nearly all its successors."
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
When I tell people that I have no favorite programming language, inevitably their next question is what programming languages do I use.
"Mostly C and C++, and some Python. Various others rarely as needed."
Then I'm asked why, especially since I consider C to be terrible.
"The customer is always right."
Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@brouhaha "Then I'm asked why, especially since I consider C to be terrible." .... BLASPHEMY ! 😎 Well ok it's not as good as C++ but how can you call C "terrible" !?
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11

@gilesgoat
#1 reason: very weak typing without runtime checking

C++ is worse than C! By being an almost-superset of C, it has all of the deficiencies of C, and adds many new ones of its own!

I will, however, admit that modern C++ does make it more practical to avoid the C pitfalls. Unfortunately it can't actually prevent them. The onus is in the programmer to know what to avoid. That's a crock.

Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@brouhaha .. and yet I think 'those may be reasons to love C too' ... I am getting emotional here 😊
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11

@gilesgoat
C is a good language for a very limited problem domain. The problem is that it gets used for nearly everything, and mostly far outside that limited domain.

C combines some of the power of assembly language with almost all of the danger of assembly language.

Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEMar 11
@brouhaha @gilesgoat Are there still people using C? - I haven't had to touch it for decades.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
@TimWardCam @gilesgoat
Most of the C I'm paid to write is for microcontrollers, either on bare metal, or with a small RTOS like FreeRTOS or Zephyr. Most software I'm paid to write for host computers is in C++ or Python.
Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@brouhaha @TimWardCam We have a multi-platform game engine that does graphics, audio, controllers, logic and anything needed that started in C then evolved into C++ , it works as a charm for that kind of application 🥰
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEMar 11
@gilesgoat @brouhaha Sure, that was a natural evolution back in the day when Java was so slow that it could only really be considered a serious challenger to Visual Basic.
Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@TimWardCam @brouhaha My very first ATTEMPT at C believe it or not, was with HiSOFTC ON *TAPE* for ZX Spectrum .. I could NOT compile "Hello World" 😅 My second 'serious' attempt was with Metacomco C on Microdrives on Sinclair QL .. I did something .. FINALLY someone ported C68 for QL on Floppies there I finally started to learn C. Finally my first real paid job we were using C on Motorola 68030/20 machines and I did use it sometime on Vax/VMS .. it all went C since 🙂
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEMar 11
@gilesgoat @brouhaha I was writing lots of assembler in those days.
Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@TimWardCam @brouhaha Me too, Motorola 68K asm .. nowadays .. I so far only wrote Z80 and SG2650 asm ( for fun, in the week ends ) 😂
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEMar 11
@gilesgoat @brouhaha 8080 then 68K (never did much Z80, just treated it as an 8080). Oh, and one project on 2900 bit slice which was a bit unusual.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
@TimWardCam @gilesgoat
I've long been a fan of bit-slice designs and microcoding. I started a low-volume email list on that topic some years back.
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE

@brouhaha @gilesgoat This one was talking to custom hardware - some one-line-of-pixels-at-a-time machine vision device and some stepping motors - in a machine whose job was to quality control microfilm of football pools coupons.

The idea was the photograph all the coupons before the matches were played to guard against people altering coupons once the results were known. As with any paper handling system, particularly one which had to read vast numbers of folded or scrunched up forms in a very short time, the photography process wasn't entirely reliable. The job of this machine was to spot forms or batches that the machine had screwed up or torn and that needed separate handling.

Late 1970s.

Mar 11 at 11:15pmWeb