[TUHS] Is C obsolete? (was Re: [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view)

[Larry McVoy]

On Mon, Jul 05, 2021 at 01:15:10PM -0700, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 6:45 AM Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen at sdaoden.eu> wrote:
> 
> >  And then, what have the holes to do with the programming language?
> >
> > Really?
> 
> A null-terminated array of char is a petri dish.  A proper string type is
> more like a disinfectant.

I'd really like it if C got a proper everything type.  Some container
type that lets you have arrays of anything and the run time system does
the realloc when you extend the container.  We built such a thing in
BitKeeper but it was awkward, any sort of modification was

	thing = modifies(thing, args...);

because the modification might realloc().
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm