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From: Alf P. Steinbach on 27 Apr 2010 13:33
* Ulrich Eckhardt:
> Francis Glassborow wrote:
>> Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:
>>> One of the most important things IMHO: It [Python, Java] doesn't
>>> have things like undefined behavior, as C and C++ do.
> [...]
>> I think that is an over-statement. Java certainly has undefined
>> behaviour just much less of it and I am pretty certain Python does as
>> well.
>
> The "much less" is exactly the point. I at least haven't crashed either VM
> yet, though my main work involves C++, not one of those two.

You're not a good at crashing things then.

I've reported at least two bugs crashing the CPython VM, and I've only toyed
with it (extremely small toy example programs) for half a year or so.

I can't recall the Java VM ever crashing but there are enough of bugs in Java too.

Nothing's perfect.

However, for the beginner it's a challenge to use a language like C or C++ where
so much can go wrong even with the simplest small example programs.


Cheers,

- Alf
From: Keith Thompson on 27 Apr 2010 15:56
"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps(a)start.no> writes:
> * Ulrich Eckhardt:
>> Francis Glassborow wrote:
>>> Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:
>>>> One of the most important things IMHO: It [Python, Java] doesn't
>>>> have things like undefined behavior, as C and C++ do.
>> [...]
>>> I think that is an over-statement. Java certainly has undefined
>>> behaviour just much less of it and I am pretty certain Python does as
>>> well.
>>
>> The "much less" is exactly the point. I at least haven't crashed either VM
>> yet, though my main work involves C++, not one of those two.
>
> You're not a good at crashing things then.
>
> I've reported at least two bugs crashing the CPython VM, and I've only toyed
> with it (extremely small toy example programs) for half a year or so.
>
> I can't recall the Java VM ever crashing but there are enough of bugs
> in Java too.
>
> Nothing's perfect.
>
> However, for the beginner it's a challenge to use a language like C or
> C++ where so much can go wrong even with the simplest small example
> programs.

And where a small program with a blatant error can appear to run
correctly.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void) {
#define GREETING "hello, world"
char *message = malloc(strlen(GREETING));
strcpy(message, GREETING);
puts(message);
free(message);
return 0;
}

(The problem: I didn't allocate space for the terminating '\0'.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u(a)mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Nokia
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"
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