Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1414
"Thomas lovein" wrote ...
The year is 2005, and we are still having debates for which the basic question is "which defines the language semantics -- the language standard, or the popular language implementation?" Even more frighteningly, we have educated and putatively competent people taking the "implementation" side.
says... I'm not sure I explained myself well enough, because I have used it to support a large number...
Some code may well work with the language implementation you are currently using. That does not mean the code is correct, merely that it works -- well, at least here and now. You want to know why we have the concept of "porting" code? It is because some coder depended on locally defined, parochial semantics instead of the language definition.
If we only had a few implementations, well, that might be understandable. But we have lots of implementations you can get at easily. You are writing ANSI C code for POSIX? Well, if it compiles cleanly under Borland Turbo C with -A, GNU C with --pedantic, and Compaq C for OpenVMS withSTANDARD:ANSI, odds are good it actually is ANSI C. An old PC running FreeDOS and Turbo C downloaded from Borland, a "testdrive" account from HP on an OpenVMS machine, and your ANSI C validation is free. If it runs cleanly on Solaris, HP-UX, and OpenVMS, odds are good it actually is POSIX compliant.
D. J. Bernstein I've been programming for twice as long, and some of my code (or code...
Not only are there lots of implementations, there are even program checkers for which the purpose is to examine the code specifically to see if it is ANSI and POSIX compliant. Wow, what a concept, a program legality validator. But of course, if the concept of "correct" were different than the concept of "it works for me," UNIX Seventh Edition would have had a program called "lint" to help you tell the difference.
Thinking "well, it works for me" means the code is correct is the same quality of thought as thinking "well, it renders okay in Internet Explorer" means the HTML is correct.
Randy Howard This is the key point. The long term flexibility is extremely valuable. That same effect occurs when you implement an algorithm that is correct no matter what the underlying register size, word...
La-la land is defined as "A place renowned for its frivolous activity" or "A state of mind characterized by unrealistic expectations or a lack of seriousness," and is the US equivalent to Aristophanes' "cloud cuckoo land." It is pejorative and quite deliberately offensive.
Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1415
Alt Folklore Computers from Newsgroups
Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1413