C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))

[Alex Martelli]

"Grant Griffin" <not.this at seebelow.org> wrote in message
news:39F73E41.C8EE143F at seebelow.org...
    [snip]
> > > Sounds like you have the makings of a "Python Guru Available For
> > > Contract Work". <wink>
> >
> > I might become one, should I ever become unhappy with my current
> > employer (or vice-versa:-).  Right now, the mission of bringing
> > "3D to everyone, everywhere" keeps our mutual enthusiasm as high
> > as it was over the last 12 years, so head-hunters need not apply.
>
> (Sounds like you didn't read the "Python Guru Available for Contract
> Work" thread. ;-)

Right, I didn't.  I do have to read selectively.


> > > Just for curiosity, could you be a little more specific here?  Sure, C
> > > has its several known pitfalls.  But those aside, what's so bad about
> > > it's syntax overall?
> >
> > Apart from its various defects (quirks and flaws, as Dennis Ritchie,
> > C's inventor, calls them), there's nothing much wrong with it.  (I
> > have yet to meet anything that -- aparts from pitfalls, defects,
> > quirks, flaws, etc -- has anything wrong with it... by definition
> > of flaws, quirks, and so on).
>
> (I think you forgot "QED" or something. ;-)

Natural language is not really suitable for that.  Cfr Wittgenstein's
heroic (but doomed to failure) attempts in the "Tractatus", on one
hand, and all of his later works (particularly the Untersuchungen, of
course) on the other.


> > > did Pascal ever need that bogus ":=" thing in the first place?
> > > <<designed by a guy who didn't use it much>>
> >
> > I don't know why you think that Backus "didn't use much" the
> > assignment statement at the end of the '50s -- I think he
> > switched to functional programming only a good while later.
>
> I was thinking more of Nicholas Wirth, the inventor of Pascal (the
> computer language, not the person. ;-)

Wirth used Pascal and Pascal-like languages in some excellent
articles and texts.  I strongly recommend "Algorithms Plus
Data Structures Equals Programs", for example, to anybody who
is looking for a classic introduction to imperative programming
along strict-and-statically-typed lines.

And I have news for you -- his typewriter (or fountain-pen, or
goose-quill) was not ruined by the extra typing of := vs =, nor
did his publisher go bankrupt because of horridly high printing
costs.  The secret, you see, is that is very little extra ink
in the two dots of that leading-colon, so it's really cheap.

So, Wirth had no motivation to change that particular facet of
Algol.  Maybe there's a worldwide secret conspiracy of colon
manufacturers behind it (the same cabal who bought off Guido
to have him make the trailing-: in Python control statements
mandatory, when it could well have been implied by the line
end; notice that the manufacturers of _semi_-colons lost out
there -- they consume more ink, after all).


> Actually, I think Backus was the guy who played "Mr. Howell" on
> "Gilligan's Island".

Sorry, I'm a specialist in everything _except_ TV, of which
I only know about a very few shows (Monty Python, Black Adder,
Saturday Night Live back when Belushi was there, the Simpsons...
i.e., the obvious stuff).  However, I suspect homonimy was at
play, since Backus was probably slightly too engaged inventing
programming languages, meta-syntax notations, techniques for
compiling and optimizing, and such, to moonlight as a TV actor.


> people-who-take-themselves-too-seriously-are-endless-fun-<wink>
>    -ly y'rs,

Are they?  Sorry, I don't know any.  I do know guys who miss
the subtleties of deadpan humor -- you know, the type who'd
be unable to follow Monty Python without the laugh-track, or
equivalent "here-is-where-it's-funny" signaling devices, such
as smilies, tags, and bogus adverbs -- they're easier to spot,
as they often overburden their posts with such devices (like
the laugh track on a doesn't-manage-to-be-funny TV comedy, I
think the hope is to hide the unfunniness behind such signals,
although, of course, it does fall flat).  When I feel nasty I
do find some fun in them, although, more often, in my typical
grandmotherly compassionate mood, I know they're just pathetic.


Alex