Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gitpyr.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!gitpyr!robert From: robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: C a strongly typed language? Message-ID: <109@gitpyr.UUCP> Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 21:06:01 EST Article-I.D.: gitpyr.109 Posted: Sat Feb 9 21:06:01 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 04:06:50 EST References: <280@gumby.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: Georgia Tech, Atlanta Lines: 38 >< Posted from g-frank@gumby.UUCP > > It looks like I've been wrong about a large class of C programmers. > These folks LOVE strong typing. They love it so much that they will > put up with casting function call arguments because the language they > are working in doesn't know enough about function types to do a proper > NIL constant conversion. They hold it in such esteem that they will > put up with having to pass the entirety of their code through some extra > program in addition to their compiler. I mean, these folks are not only > willing to declare their faith, they go out of their way to SUFFER for > it. I'm, like, awed. > I wouldn't call lint an extra program in addition to the compiler. I would say it's a part of the compiler. If you put lint and cc together you have what most people consider a compiler. All the other compilers I've worked with (Pascal, Fortran, PL/I and others) do everything that lint and cc put together do (especially Pascal). Lint and cc merely seperated the tasks performed by the compiler: that of program verification/checking and producing code. Granted, lint does do a bit more such as portability checking (although there are some compilers that do check that) and also cc does has to do some syntax checking. As a personal opinion, my main gripe about all these C compilers popping up all over the place for non-unix systems is that most of them do not come with lint. As for suffering through using lint, I'd say it wasn't suffering, but more like a slight-but-necessary inconvenience. The suffering part is when lint isn't used. robert -- Robert Viduya Georgia Institute of Technology ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!robert ...!{rlgvax,sb1,uf-cgrl,unmvax,ut-sally}!gatech!gitpyr!robert