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I'd like to see Pike vs. the MISRA guidelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C). Rob's notes here are not about the

I'd like to see Pike vs. the MISRA guidelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C). Rob's notes here are not about the kind of safety critical, hopefully small, programs that MISRA claims to improve. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts about just those kinds of programs, and whether pointers and function pointers are still helpful.

kbob 10y ago
It's useful to apply the Steve Yegge political axis metaphor[1] here. C forces a fairly conservative approach because it stocks a full arsenal of footguns. Pike and most of the early Unix guys, though, are about as liberal as they can be within C's constraints. MISRA, on the other hand, is Idaho survivalist camp conservative. Both parties have good reason for their ideologies. Early Unix programs were tiny enough that it was easy to keep an entire applications' rules in your head and take full advantage of them. So it makes sense to play fast and loose. MISRA-compliant systems, OTOH, are developed by large teams where no member understands the whole system, and the consequences of getting something wrong are measured in attorney man-years. [1] https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4vQtz https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4v...