Marco wrote:
bearophile Wrote:
Walter Bright:
I find the responses to be very curious, particularly the "not in
the spirit of C" ones.<
There are people that think of C as something set in stone,
something >that has a "necessary" design. Few years of discussions
in the D >newsgroups teach that instead C was not born as a single
atomic >perfect thing, it's a collection of design choices and
design compromises, >the original authors have chosen only part of
the possible alternatives.
For the most part the C design is complete at this point in its
language lifecycle with only minor tweaks allowed in the core
language that don't break existing ISO C90 standard code. C99
introduced VLAs which was a mistake bolting on a new feature.
Of course - cleanup of the standard libraries should continue.
VLA's are not a mistake because they are a bolted on new feature. They
are a mistake because they are poorly designed and have very limited
utility.
On the other hand, I know the array proposal delivers because it's been
very successful in D for nearly 10 years now. It won't break any
existing code, either. And it's simple to implement (easier than VLA's).
It's just a win, all around.
