Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gumby.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxb!mhuxr!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!uwvax!gumby!g-frank From: g-frank@gumby.UUCP Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: C a strongly typed language? Message-ID: <280@gumby.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Feb-85 08:41:29 EST Article-I.D.: gumby.280 Posted: Wed Feb 6 08:41:29 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 02:16:28 EST Distribution: net Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept Lines: 35 I've had so much response to my assertion that most people don't use lint that I must admit that, yes, a large number of people do (this in spite of a recent anti-lint flame on the net that provoked even stronger response). This all raises another question though. The folks defending lint to above-mentioned flamer describe the need to perform various contortions to satisfy lint's extreme pickiness: casting function returns to (void), explicitly casting function arguments to (char *), or (int *), or whatever, putting in little commands to lint to ignore this or that, etc. None of this is any reason to flame at lint, of course. As it has been pointed out, if you want portable code in C, you use lint. One defender of the thing even called C a "strongly typed language." 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. Originally, I thought C programmers didn't like Modula-2 because the strong typing was inconvenient. Now I understand better. Modula-2 doesn't make you work hard enough to achieve strong typing. Guess I'm just a lazy guy. -- Dan Frank "good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance."