OFF-TOPIC:: Why Lisp is not my favorite programming language

[Michael Borgwardt]

goose wrote:

>>quite robust.  For instance, C is great if you are going to develop
>>software for 1 platform.  However, if you are developing software for
>>multiple platforms, Java is a better choice.
> 
> 
> Pick a fairly simple application ... lets say a tic-tac-toe
> game. Are you certain that the game implemented in java will
> run on more platforms than the same game implemented in ANSI
> C?

Absolutely certain if it uses a GUI. Otherwise, it depends very much
on the C programmer, whereas even the most incompetent Java programmer
will find it hard to casually insert a platform dependance.


> C has many many weaknesses; platform dependence is /not/ one of
> them. 

Like *hell* it isn't!

- sizes of basic types differ between platforms and compilers
- newly allocated memory may or may not be zeroed
- sctructs may or may not be padded, variables may or may
   not need to be aligned
- etc.

Yes, you can work around all of them, but it takes an active effort. There's
a reason why it's now common practice to buld C applications with GNU
autoconf, making the build a *three*-level process (counting pre-processor,
compilation and linking together as only one). And it still often fails
with cryptic error messages.