Re: [RFC] Convert builin-mailinfo.c to use The Better String Library.

John 'Z-Bo' Zabroski [off-list ref] writes:

Linus Torvalds <torvalds <at> linux-foundation.org> writes:

quoted

IOW, C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make
things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple
GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language
that C is that actively encourags you to use simple and direct
constructs.

I want code that is Correct, Explicit, Fast, and in that order.

One beef I have with C++ is its automatic conversion rules.  They were
obviously designed with two goals:

a) behave as C when not using user-defined types.  That's ok.

b) behave like Fortran in mixed-type expressions involving "complex"
   when using C++ (with any arbitrary user-defined type taking the
   role of "complex").

And b is just madness.  Not every user-defined arithmetic type is
complex.  I did some work using modular arithmetic (GF(65521) and
similar) and it was some hard work to keep values going through the
wrong arithmetic conversions.  Basically trial and error and reading
the generated assembly code and head scratching and standard-reading.

In short: the automatic conversions made it hard to express what one
wanted to get done, both for compiler as well as programmer.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum