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by baq 756 days ago
which is C, because nothing can replace C.

C is portable assembly. Don't use it unless you really must.

Yes I know people want to replace C with Rust, no it won't work because Rust is not assembly, yes it can be used to replace anywhere between 90% to 99% of C and it shouldn't even be too hard. (Unless your embedded device manufacturer doesn't care, which of course they don't.)
2 comments
pjc50 756 days ago
> C is portable assembly.

Unfortunately, it isn't quite this, and many of the instances which people use it for this are actually undefined behavior; there's a hinterland of "things C compilers do" which are used as portable asm but are not part of C because they are UB.

I sometimes wonder if it would be feasible to define an actually portable typesafe macro assembler.

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pjmlp 756 days ago
Only if you mean K&R C, where C was mostly a portable macro assembler, calling into Assembly code, written and compiled via an external assembler like in the first iteractions of the UNIX rewrite from Assembly into C.

The Lions book is a good example of what that C used to be like.

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