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Thomas E. Kurtz has died

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618 points 1986 | 6 comments | 14 Nov 24 22:12 UTC | HN request time: 1.17s | source | bottom
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WalterBright ◴[15 Nov 24 20:46 UTC] No.42150808[source]▶
I originally learned to program with BASIC. When I was designing D, I thought back to how easy and natural string manipulation was in BASIC, and what a festering swamp of bugs it was in C.

Having strings as easy and correct in D was a major priority, and history has shown that this was a success.

P.S. Whenever I review C code, I first look at the string manipulation. The probability of finding a bug in it is near certainty. Question for the people who disagree - without looking it up, how does strncpy() deal with 0 termination?

Thank you, Thomas Kurtz!

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1. DamonHD ◴[15 Nov 24 21:20 UTC] No.42151230[source]▶
Arrrgh! I think that I may have unintentionally insulted you in about 1987 when (as a callow youth) I was trying to pick a language for an embedded/robotics system. I believe that I spoke to you on the phone about ... ahem ... C, which you answered politely but somewhat through gritted teeth...

In the end I went for C, and the OS ended up in this thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ZEUwwOYxo&t=72s

I still cringe about that call!

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2. WalterBright ◴[15 Nov 24 21:40 UTC] No.42151458[source]▶
What was the call about?

Don't worry about it, I don't remember it! I have come to regret a lot of stupid things I said when I was younger.

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3. DamonHD ◴[15 Nov 24 21:48 UTC] No.42151544[source]▶
Well, it was a while ago... I was trying to choose a language to use for our start-up's tiny (2kB EPROM, 2kB RAM?) Z80A system, alongside some assembler, and I was basically having to write an OS/runtime for the robot that I designed the hardware for as well. I was about out of my depth. Candidate languages were, I think, BCPL, B, C and D, and I got mixed up and spoke to you about C. (It is possible that I spoke to the B or BCPL guy rather than you.) But in any case, asking one language's creator to extol the virtues of a different language is not clever! %-P Ouch!

Does the name "Grey Matter" ring any bells for you? (Software reseller, still seems to exist...)

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4. WalterBright ◴[15 Nov 24 22:36 UTC] No.42152027{3}[source]▶
1987 predates D by about 15 years!

No, I don't recall the name. It was a long time ago. Sorry.

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5. WalterBright ◴[15 Nov 24 22:41 UTC] No.42152085{3}[source]▶
Back in the 80s, a coworker (knowing I was in the C compiler business) came to me and asked "my husband wants to get into C programming, which compiler should he use?" (At the time, there were about 30 C compilers available for DOS.) I replied, Datalight C!

She laughed, touched my elbow, and said "oh no, not your compiler!"

Another coworker (Eric Engstrom, yes, that guy!) heard this and let out huge belly laugh. She suddenly realized what she had said, and got very embarrassed. (I won't print her name. I've long since forgiven her! I just thought it was funny.)

Good ole' Eric. Truly larger than life. I miss him.

6. DamonHD ◴[16 Nov 24 08:45 UTC] No.42155316{4}[source]▶
Ah, I may be off the hook. Thanks anyhow!