Comment by timbit42
3 days ago
Your argument is exactly why we ended up with the abominations of C and C++ instead of the safety of Pascal, Modula-2, Ada, Oberon, etc. Programmers at the time didn't realize how little impact safety features like bounds checking have. The bounds only need to be checked once for a for loop, not on each iteration.
> The bounds only need to be checked once for a for loop, not on each iteration.
This is a theoretical argument. It depends on the compiler being able to see that’s what you’re doing and prove that there is no other mutation.
> abominations of C and C++
Sounds like you don’t understand the design choices that made this languages successful.
I understand the design choices and they're crap. Choosing a programming language shouldn't be a popularity contest.
There are inevitably those who don't know how to program but are responsible for hiring those that can. Language popularity is an obvious metric with good utility for that case.
Even so you haven't provided any compelling evidence that C or C++ made it's decisions to be more appealing or more popular.