Today, it probably does make sense to revisit this.
Unless you consider the fact that more C code exists right now than will ever be written in the future^. C is 43 years old. It’s not going away, but much of the C code being written these days isn’t new–but, rather maintenance on existing large code bases.
Pressure from other languages, the need for more secure systems, etc, will cause new LOC in C stats to decline further. Safer languages will rise, and C will become a relic of the past (but it will take another 40 years of maintenance on existing multi-million line systems).
^: This is pure speculation / assumption. I have nothing to back this up other than a general feeling that people are less likely to choose C for new software in the future.
I didn’t really mean that it needed to be revisited in C. :) Every language has to make decisions about string representation. But I agree with all of that!
Ah! That makes more sense. Though, since the C standard is still evolving, one could argue for inclusion of a new primitive “string” type that does this by default. Would probably be silly, of course.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/10/14/dennis-ritchie-has-died/
The extra three bytes was a lot on many of the platforms C was originally meant to target. Today, it probably does make sense to revisit this.
Unless you consider the fact that more C code exists right now than will ever be written in the future^. C is 43 years old. It’s not going away, but much of the C code being written these days isn’t new–but, rather maintenance on existing large code bases.
Pressure from other languages, the need for more secure systems, etc, will cause new LOC in C stats to decline further. Safer languages will rise, and C will become a relic of the past (but it will take another 40 years of maintenance on existing multi-million line systems).
^: This is pure speculation / assumption. I have nothing to back this up other than a general feeling that people are less likely to choose C for new software in the future.
I didn’t really mean that it needed to be revisited in C. :) Every language has to make decisions about string representation. But I agree with all of that!
Ah! That makes more sense. Though, since the C standard is still evolving, one could argue for inclusion of a new primitive “string” type that does this by default. Would probably be silly, of course.
Strtok without reallocation