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Why not write a small utility that may do something similar to sometrhing that already exists (let's face it, almost everything has been thought of already!) but does it a better/easier way?

For example, I always hated the syntax of sed (regexp's aren't easy either) and it missed quite a few features I'd like, so I wrote "replace" instead:

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hpp...

I also find "bc", "dc" and "calc" completely unfathomable, so I wrote my own "calc" (without knowing about the other one until well afterwards!) which actually has an expression evaluator based on BASIC (i.e. "obvious"):

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hpp...

Neither utility is large and both were fairly straightorward to write and I use both quite regularly to this day, many years after writing them.

Why not write a small utility that may do something similar to sometrhing that already exists (let's face it, almost everything has been thought of already!) but does it a better/easier way?

For example, I always hated the syntax of sed (regexp's aren't easy either) and it missed quite a few features I'd like, so I wrote "replace" instead:

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hpp...

I also find "bc", "dc" and "calc" completely unfathomable, so I wrote my own "calc" (without knowing about the other one until well afterwards!) which actually has an expression evaluator based on BASIC (i.e. "obvious"):

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hpp...

Neither utility is large and both were fairly straightorward to write and I use both quite regularly to this day, many years after writing them.

C seems pretty sane to me.

Did you see any other similar low-level languages to compare to? Say, Modula-2?

Just about everything you really depend on is written in C. The linux Kernel is written in C.

That's because C happened to be in the right time at the right place, and by now became pretty much the only language in its low-level niche. It doesn't make it perfectly designed for that niche, however.

Generics are ughhh. They introduce more trouble then they are worth.

It seems that you're thinking of Java generics, but the term itself is (pardon the pun) more generic than that. And what's "ugh" about them? They cover many use cases which are done with macros in vanilla C, but do so in a much more ordered and safe way.

On the other hand, non-generic qsort() or bsearch() in C standard library are considerably slower than generic std::sort() and std::find() in C++ standard library, because of extra indirection via void* that's necessary to, effectively, simulate generics. So it's not just about convenience, but also about performance.

But, of course, I'd also much prefer to write something like "x = find(xs, x => x > 123)", rather than having to define a separate named function greater_than_N for every different N that I happen to need it for.

Function literals? Pointer to a function much?

Sane? Please! gimme a break.

I was specifically referring to C declarator syntax - you know, where you have to write stuff like int*(*foo)[123], or know how to parse it when you read it. The only language for which someone felt the need to write a special utility to figure out declarators.

Is this it?

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Games/Arcade/atc-1.0/

As an ex-HP-support user, sometimes it wasn't obvious that their helpdesk people had ever used Windows. The front-line people had been given a script, and followed it with no comprehension. When (in the case of the laptop hardware problems that I was logging at the time) it was impossible to follow their instructions, the only solution was to box it up and send it back. With a laptop that's feasible; just swap for another one - but with a server it isn't.

I suppose that there are always the HP-UX and ex-Dec Unix people - they're already familiar with some of the software (see http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Gnu/) and the concept of a package manager shouldn't be too alien to them (HP .depot files).

You sign up for a free account and get NetBSD, Linux, Tru64 and HP-UX accounts on a variety of hardware.

The account itself is not mail enabled, but compilers, ftp, editors - it's all there and anything else you need you could compile and run yourself...

HP-UX software ports and archives here.

Enjoy!

RJ

You can get plenty of software already ported to HP-UX in depot format, including gcc and gnome from your friendly hpux porting site. try This on in the uk Just download and insatll with swinstall. Regards