What is Expressiveness in a Computer Language

[Joachim Durchholz]

rossberg at ps.uni-sb.de schrieb:
> Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
>> |
>> | (Unfortunately, you can hardly write interesting programs in any safe
>> | subset of C.)
>>
>> Fortunately, some people do, as living job.
> 
> I don't think so. Maybe the question is what a "safe subset" consists
> of. In my book, it excludes all features that are potentially unsafe.

Unless you define "safe", *any* program is unsafe.
Somebody could read the program listing, which could trigger a traumatic 
childhood experiece.
(Yes, I'm being silly. But the point is very serious. Even with less 
silly examples, whether a language or subset is "safe" entirely depends 
on what you define to be "safe", and these definitions tend to vary 
vastly across language communities.)

Regards,
Jo