Request for comments on language extension: Safe arrays and pointers for C.

[Andrew Haley]

On 09/03/2012 04:20 PM, Joseph S. Myers wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Sep 2012, Andrew Haley wrote:
> 
>> This isn't the only way to proceed.  I'd encourage someone wanting to
>> do this to branch GCC and implement a rough cut of the feature.  That
> 
> That would very likely be "build one to throw away" - features built 
> without a clear definition of how they interact with other language 
> features have been particularly problematic in the past.  So have 
> extensions built based on "take this feature from another language, and 
> put it in GNU C".

The alternative is worse: to design and fully specify a language
feature and suggest that people adopt it without at any point trying
that feature in real applications.

>> will provide useful information about the amount of work likely to be
>> needed to complete the task.  Also, it will provide the opportunity to
>> try out the language feature to see how well it works in practice.
> 
> Whether people *will* use it is probably the more significant question 
> than whether it *can* be used to address particular issues.

Well, of course.  But the only way to find out is by an iterative
process: design something, try it, and refine.  Supporting that is one
of GCC's primary goals, and has been since the beginning of the
project.

Andrew.