What's left for 1.0?

[Bill Baxter]

Walter Bright wrote:
 > C can't do any of those things.

Sure it can.

>> * No way to initialize a static array without counting elements
>>     static byte[???] imageData = [...];   // i hope you like counting!

C has no problem with this.  I do it all the time:

        static const unsigned char[] = { 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, 255 };

>> * No way to initialize a dynamic array with a known length
>>     byte[] imageData;  imageData.length = 5;  // two steps - meh

C has no problem with this (using malloc, its own concept of "dynamic 
arrays"):

    byte* imageData = (byte*)malloc(5*sizeof(byte));

A better comparison is C++, which has no problem with it's std library 
vector class:

    vector<int> imageData(5);


>> * No way to initialize array of strings
>>     char[][] list = ["eggs","bacon","milk","break"];  //uh uh

C can do this:

     char *list[] = { "eggs","bacon","milk","break" };

>> * No way to initialize non-static struct
>>     Point p = { x:1.0, y:2.0 };  // nope...not static

C has no problem with that either:

     struct Point { float x, y; };
     void foo() {
        Point p = {1.0,2.0};
     }

(and C99 can do it with the x: y: syntax too, I think)

>>
>> * No way to initialize associative array
>>     char[int] strTable = {"hello":5, "hi":2, "greetings":9}; // no way

Well you got me there.  C can't do that.

>> I know things have gotten much better since the old days, when there 
>> weren't even array literals (yikes!), but it still looks pretty 
>> primitive in some ways compared to C.

--bb