[plug] [why not staroffice]

[Hook]

Not true (about the long programs).  C is (OK, *can be*) fast and pretty
efficient. I'm currently writing a network traffic accounting system in C
largely because it's considerably faster than any of the limited number of
other choices.

Portability is an issue with any language. You can write portable C with
considerable effort, and you can write C that is pretty much tied into the
platform that you're developing on. Usually, the core of any program can be
made portable, it's the interfaces to the external world that give trouble
(i.e. the differences between X and the MickeySoft equivalent).

Paul


> Thanks for the feedback on programming - this is certainly an active
group.
> I too have found that C does not handle strings as well as some other
languages,
> but I have heard from nerds that C is very good for writing languages, and
for
> operating systems. I reason that most sysadmins must use C a lot for
patches and
> the like, but that nobody would actually sit down and write a long program
in C.
> Am I right in thinking this?
> But I also find that most languages look very like C to me with the
variable
> initialisations, include libraries and the like - also the layout of the
source
> code is very much like C.
> I heard that unix itself was written in C, so I reason that everybody
should know
> a bit of C. Also it is not high level but yet not low level like
assembler.
> Perhaps mid level, which means that you have to do a lot of lines of code
to come
> up with the same outcome as yo could with much less coding in Pascal? Even
though
> they say C is very portable I found code which would compile and run under
turbo C
> would not do so on microsof C. Also would not compile on GC, so I am
wondering
> just how portable it is?