On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Jonathan S. Shapiro <[email protected]>wrote:

> If you want the C memory model, stick with C. A language that *purports* to
> give type safety, and then uses the C memory model, is far worse than a
> language that makes no pretenses.
>

I didn't say the language would be typesafe. It most certainly would not
be! At the same time, I don't think it's too much to ask to have
typechecked enums and a few other modernizations. That's like advocating
someone either ride a horse or wait for someone (you?) to invent
warp-drive.

The [C++] exception problem is a much bigger problem*,* and not just for
> the boundary between C++ and C.


Agreed. I think a bit of my feature-list came from the desire for something
which innovated from C into something very different than C++...

Compiler checked enums, compiler checked exhaustive enum/type switch, and
compiler checked pass-or-handle error values would be a big step in
software construction (even if not for typesafety and security)....  C++
only has one of those, and that comes with a bunch of stuff we don't want.

I'm actually very disturbed that somebody might build the language you
> describe. From a computer security perspective, C and C++ are part of the
> problem we need to conclusively eliminate.


Now this I don't get. I respect your aims. However, advocating for the
replacement of systems with others that are demonstrably inferior in many
ways (overhead, performance, responsiveness) is the tail wagging the dog.
The onus falls on all-of-us to build a system which is so much better in
all of these ways it is flocked to. To do otherwise is just tilting at
windmills.

In my idealistic heart, I want the mythical Apache 2.0 licensed
cross-platform CLR + Azul/Zing no-pause GC to be the solution that ends
C-development. However, my engineer mind knows that even in that fantastic
system, which I do think would be a much more capable C/C++ competitor
today, GC tracing work is proportional to pointer-count and
program-duration. There are certain programs for which that model can not
equal C performance. And then there is the fact that the mythical system
does not exist.
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