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Semiotics of functional programming
In contrast to the usual imperative languages (e.g., C, Fortran, and Ada), in which variables represent cells in memory that can be modified using the assignment operator = (or :=), functional...
View ArticleC89 Standard
A text version of a non-final draft is below. Here’s the pdf of the final version. (This foreword is not a part of American National Standard for Information Systems --- Programming Language C,...
View ArticleDennis Ritchie on alias analysis in the C programming language 1988
This 1998 note by Dennis Ritchie from comp.lang.c (and also here ) is very current since the concept of noalias has definitely crept back into the standard. I have reproduced it verbatim, but lightly...
View ArticleC is not a serious programming language
The C Standards process over the last few decades has addressed both optimization and pointer type safety largely through a concept called “undefined behavior”. The idea is that instead of positive...
View ArticleUndefined behavior in C is a reading error.
Considering how important “undefined behavior” has become to C semantics and the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 Committee, the lack of any reference to it in the K&R ANSI book is notable and the...
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Dissing the PDP11
In computer science academia, C along with UNIX, and PDP11s, is as unfashionable as can be: the equivalent of other 1970’s relics, like polyester leisure suits and mullets. In 2018 ACM Queue published...
View ArticleMemory model and semantics for C
A perceptive note from Linus Torvalds about the C/C++ “memory model” is reproduced below. From Linus Torvalds <> Date Thu, 7 Jun 2018 08:40:49 -0700 Subject Re: LKMM litmus test for Roman...
View ArticleThreads in C
There is a nice example thread semantics in a paper by David Goldblatt (P1916R0) which illustrates a couple of things about multi-core processing – including how interesting it is and how poorly...
View ArticleUnforgivable C programming 1
As many people never tire of explaining, the C language is obsolete, unsafe, unwelcome in polite company and generally looked down on by thought leaders and adepts of λ calculus alike. Here’s a...
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