Dan Bron wrote:

> > Currently, the majority of commercial code* is written in C, C++, Java,
> C#, and VB (6 and .NET).   AFAIK, none of those languages have  /  built
> into the syntax.  In fact, the only mainstream language I know which has
> it is SQL, which does it haphazardly (nonetheless, it may partially
> explain SQL's popularity).
>
>

Part of the reason that C-based languages have no array operations is that
they don't really have good arrays: in particular the size of a C array is
unknown once declared, and variable sized or conformant arrays are not
supported.  Obviously  these can be simulated, but they are not built-in. 
The idea of arrays whose size is variable and known only at run-time is
alien to the system programming world, where C originated.

Best wishes,

John


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