5 ms·

The same could be said about C++. C is a weakly typed language and was designed to be so, so it's type system cannot really be said to be 'bad'.

• jrockway 18y ago
  Yes, good point. But a lot of people cite C as "the" strongly and statically typed language, and that's just wrong. ("But omg, you have to say 'int i' instead of 'var i'. Clearly this is strong typing!")
  • noamsml 18y ago
    C has no types, as a quick (int*)&var will show.
    • scott_s 18y ago
      Being able to subvert the type system is different than having no type system.
    • wingo 18y ago
      Unfortunately, this is not true in the case of type punning. C used to be the language you used when you wanted to access bits. Now with C99 you cannot * (int16* )((int32* )x). NB, all compilers make exceptions for unions, but the type punning rule stands, and at work we've actually seen code like the above (for a dynamic typing system) compile to NULL instead of the appropriate reference with GCC. Grrrrrrr.