From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c406e0c4a6eb74ed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-06!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: Benjamin Ketcham Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 06:00:22 -0000 Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie Message-ID: <1094968820.732543@yasure> References: <49dc98cf.0408110556.18ae7df@posting.google.com> <413e2fbd$0$30586$626a14ce@news.free.fr> <1371289.WCcgO7lass@linux1.krischik.com> <1094926196.802462@yasure> User-Agent: tin/1.6.2-20030910 ("Pabbay") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.20-29.8.progeny.8 (i686)) Cache-Post-Path: yasure!unknown@cascadia.drizzle.com X-Cache: nntpcache 2.4.0b5 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3605 Date: 2004-09-12T06:00:22+00:00 List-Id: Georg Bauhaus wrote: > Benjamin Ketcham wrote: > : > : The fact that C99 has not caught on would seem to indicate that > : the market considers it *less* useful, not more! The de facto > : industry standard is "C90 plus the common extensions", and there it > : remains. I guess the C programmers didn't want their language to > : go down the path of the "RM". Or, they just don't see it as > : necessary (niche areas like numerical computation being exceptions). > > Maybe C99 is as yet unknown to many C programmers? Well, I can't speak for the "unwashed masses" of C/C++/Win32 programmers; I wouldn't expect my own experience to necessarily be the same. But *I* am certainly aware of C99; and personally, I haven't met any C programmers who are not aware of C99. With me, it is a conscious choice to remain compatible with C90 wherever possible: i.e., the same considerations that often lead me to choose C over C++ (or Ada). If I *need* the C99 features, then I can try to find a compiler. But frankly, I don't need any of the new features, most of the time, nice though some of them are (or *would be* if anyone implemented them!). The main C99 features that are of general utility, such as "long long", have been available as extensions (though not all implementations are compatible with the C99 syntax). Same for niceties like intermixed declarations and statements, //-comments, etc.. I personally don't need flexible arrays enough to want to break C90 portability, and while the integer types and numerics have been greatly improved and regularized in C99, again I am already used to living without this. C90 is turning out to be a hard act to follow! Just writing a new standard, even a clearly improved standard with the seal of approval of a respected industry organization, doesn't seem to be enough to make people clamour to switch. I don't think many people are using C90 merely because they haven't heard of C99 yet. It's the *compiler vendors* who haven't heard of it... --Benjamin