Astro Hacker News - CobaltC – The Successor to C?

ethin |next [-]

This is so obviously written by ChatGPT from what I can tell. Not even an attempt to copyedit it unless I missed something.

thinkafter |root |parent |next [-]

I’m not sure about copy but the UI seems designed to look like an AI response which is certainly a choice

hyperhello |root |parent |previous [-]

[flagged]

pizlonator |next |previous [-]

This doesnt seems to be meaningfully different from Rust.

> does not require tracing garbage collection

Just call it garbage collection.

(Applies in two ways: if you think that garbage collection subsumes reference counting then this language doesn’t require garbage collection in the sense that it also doesn’t require reference counting; if you think that garbage collection does not subsume reference counting then there’s no point in saying three words when you can say two.)

AlotOfReading |root |parent [-]

It's less specified than rust. For example, you can bind references to individual collection elements here. It doesn't seem to prohibit borrowing a dynamically indexed element either, which is one hell of a static analysis lift. Seems like you can also have simultaneous references to distinct static indices (e.g. &mut arr[0] and &mut arr[1]) as long as you don't do invalidating operations, which isn't expressible in NLL or polonius. That's feasible for a borrowchecker at least.

ronsor |next |previous [-]

Before I read this, what is there about C3 [0] you don't like?

[0] https://c3-lang.org

jjtheblunt |root |parent [-]

C3 is an embarrassing mess regarding integer types and sizes, missing C99's stdint.h defs, for example.

strenholme |root |parent [-]

To clarify: C3 has fixed sized ints. Maybe the parent poster doesn’t like their names, but they are fixed sized, as follows:

  Name    Size    Signed
  bool    1       no
  ichar   8       yes
  char    8       no
  short   16      yes
  ushort  16      no
  int     32      yes
  uint    32      no
  long    64      yes
  ulong   64      no
  int128  128     yes
  uint128 128     no

Source: https://c3-lang.org/language-overview/types/#integer-types

ternaryoperator |next |previous [-]

It's great to have it all spec'd out. However, I think specs like this suffer the same fate as war plans: they get modified quickly as soon as implementation begins. Nonetheless, it's good to have a clear idea of where you're headed. I just wouldn't call it "Final."

rurban |next |previous [-]

Unsafe identifiers, prone to homoglyph attacks. No TR39 provisions. Worse than rust or Java. https://strawberry9.github.io/the-wrong-memory/Appendix_06.h...

drgo |next |previous [-]

reads more like a Wishlist rather than actual implementable specs.

nextaccountic |root |parent [-]

every spec is implementable

some just delegate more or less to the implementation

nextaccountic |root |parent [-]

that said, the borrowing part is incredibly short on details

i read trying to assess if it's more or less expressible than rust's current nll or the future polonius and honestly there's nothing there

yoklov |next |previous [-]

This is certainly copying off Rust's homework...

Fordec |root |parent [-]

Who copied off Haskells homework, so here we are.

irishcoffee |root |parent [-]

And cloudflare still somehow shipped a rust binary that crashed half the internet.

katdork |root |parent [-]

and I've had Haskell binaries attempt to use infinite quantities of RAM (looking at an old version of dconf2nix here) and thus crash

woodruffw |previous [-]

Another one?

SilentLambda |root |parent |next [-]

Yes, but remember is the last appendix to a book, and book provides the context for this appendix. So yes, in that sense, it's just another one attempting to address the memory-safety issues of C. At least this one uses C like syntax and doesn't require C programmers to learn some alien syntax. Of course, this is just a spec, Rust is well and truly live in the environment. The book is more interesting than the spec.

Gualdrapo |root |parent |previous [-]

Odin's turn to be "the sucessor of C" is due this month