[vox] things that really suck about C!

[Matthew Van Gundy]

On 2/28/10 6:35 PM, Brian Lavender wrote:
> I think if anything, C has been a certain detriment to the field of
> computer science!

Ah... it's easy to say that nearly 40 years after C's inception.  It was 
quite a revolutionary development at the time.  If I remember my history 
correctly, two of the major design goals for C were that it be 
consistent (few special/end cases) and that it its constructs run 
efficiently on production machines.  I think that the fact that C is 
still in wide-spread use in the field is a testament to how forward 
thinking it was for the time.  How many programs have you used that were 
written in Algol, COBOL, PL/I?  C has it's weaknesses and limitations 
but it has proved its utility over the years.

> One calls a function and the arguments are passed by value. Call a
> function with an array as an argument, and feel free to modify its
> contents!

Yep, all arguments are pass by value (... there's that consistency 
shining through).  When you pass an array, it passes a pointer to the 
first element.  For fun though, change mod_array's signature to:

void mod_array(const int *a);
or
void mod_array(const int a[]);

Cheers,
Matt