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Re: OT: Why is C so popular?



On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 07:58:01PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:53:26 -0500
> Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> wrote:
> > Seriously, though, OO languages, being born of academia, were designed
> > *not* to be quick-'n-dirty languages.  They were designed with
> > large projects in mind (the whole Software Design Life Cycle bit).
> 
>     Oh how I would love to find who came up with that particular catch phrase
> and retort with my 10.5's in the posterior of said person.
>  
> > If you want a (IMHO) good mix between QnD and OO, try Python.  It
> > is totally comfortable with procedural coding and OO coding.
> 
>     Ohhhh yeah.  To me coding is organic.  I know what I want the program to
> do, I dunno how to get there.  Actually doing helps me think and see where to
> go.  Ya get this working, then you branch out and do this.  In the process
> this doesn't work so you tweak it a little.  The whole notion of designing the
> program before you program it seems odd because programming is designing IMHO.
> 
Here's a suggestion to give your programmmer's view of design the appearance of
academic respectibility. 

Doing design requires a language in which to record the results of your 
thinking (design work). That language can't be English, or any other _natural_
language, because such languages are lacking in the kind of rigor that design
needs. C is a language which has sufficient rigor to handle recording a design.
It can handle recording a partial design that is a work in progress. Coding
in C before you have a complete design is _good_. It allows you to keep your
thinking straight in a way that recording your design in a natural language
would never do.

And, in some cases, like the present one, appearances are good.




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