Re: Kernel Development & Objective-C

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Alan Cox wrote:
BCPL was typeless, as was the successor B (between Bell Labs and GE we

B isn't quite typeless. It has minimal inbuilt support for concepts like
strings (although you can of course multiply a string by an array
pointer ;))

It also had some elegances that C lost, notably
	case 1..5:

the ability to do no zero biased arrays

	x[40];
	x-=10;

Well, original C allowed you to do what you wanted with pointers (I used to teach that back when K&R was "the" C manual). Now people which about having pointers outside the array, which is a crock in practice, as long as you don't actually /use/ an out of range value.

and the ability to reassign function names.

	printk = wombat;

I had forgotten that, the function name was actually a variable with the entry point, say so in section 3.11. And as I recall the code, arrays were the same thing, a length ten vector was actually the vector and variable with the address of the start. I was more familiar with the B stuff, I wrote both the interpreter and the code generator+library for the 8080 and GE600 machines. B on MULTICS, those were the days... :-D

as well as stuff like free(function);

Alan (who learned B before C, and is still waiting for P)

I had the BCPL book still on the reference shelf in the office, along with goodies like the four candidates to be Ada, and a TRAC manual. I too expected the next language to be "P".

--
Bill Davidsen <[email protected]>
  "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot
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