|
Article Publishing
|
~ superhuman qualities memorizing compiler quirks |
Often in Delphi code and other languages you will see IFDEF VERSIONXX and not just a few but splattered all over the code. Programmers have to memorize different quirks of 10-18 different compiler versions to deal with issues differently for all those compilers. Programming is hard enough as it is, so spending brain efforts on these compiler differences is a massive memorization task, only possible by super humans - and often even if super human, people make mistakes and barf up the code that compiles but doesn't always work correctly, due to a compiler quirk.
There is a reason why people use Plain C, so that you don't have to memorize compiler quirks of 18 different compiler versions: or if you do (MSVC vs GCC) they are a limited amount of quirks. You just stick to a simple small language (relatively) and not 18 different versions of the language: with the disadvantage of C being stuck in 1970's and featureless, obviously. But at least you do not have to be super human to memorize 18 different versions of a compiler that has different quirks: to an extent. You still likely have to call different api functions for Unicode, for example, dealing with strings differently, depending if wide char or not, and possibly use some ugly casts.
There is no simple solution to this: the advantage of Delphi and other languages having several versions of themselves, is that they always evolve (supposedly to a better state) rather than being stuck in 1970's.
But there is a reason so many people use plain C for even applications development, and likely this may be one of them: not having to deal with 18 different versions of a C language, and only dealing with one major version of it. Indeed, gcc/msvc may be a whopping 2 versions of C, rather than a massive 18 versions. Again, stressing that using C, although advantageous in some senses, is also living in 1970's, which, could be good, but is also bad.
I said there was no simple solution to this fuckpile mess, with regards: fuck you.
|
|