How do you expect to use sum types in assembly? Remember where C came from and why it was designed the way it was.
The historical argument and appeal to assembly is illogical here. The only real argument is that niche value optimization is too complex or too clever for the time so even if sum types were in C, nullable pointers would still exist either way.
You're telling me OCaml / Rust / Haskell compile to fairy pixie dust? Obviously their compilers figured it out and it works.
If that was the goal, it failed horribly - the gatekeeping didn't work because the popularity exploded.
> You're telling me OCaml / Rust / Haskell compile to fairy pixie dust? Obviously their compilers figured it out and it works.
I said nothing of the sort.
No, I didn't - I asked how sum types were supposed to work in an era of 64KB memory systems.
The boring cases require an enum tag in C too.
By bringing up the one thing that doesn't matter, your argument becomes purely ideological.
And which modern C compiler fits into 64KB? Even TCC needs 100KB. But that's beside the point. No machine of the last 36 (I'll push my chances, 40) years needs to fit a compiler in 64KB.
That's famously a single-pass compiler. Rust is famously unable to compile in a single pass.
It is not possible to make a borrow-checking language that compiles in a single pass.
> No machine of the last 36 (I'll push my chances, 40) years needs to fit a compiler in 64KB.
Exactly - that's why C is what it is: it wasn't a mistake, they were working under the constraints of the time. My original comment (that you appeared to disagree with) said specifically "Remember where C came from and why it was designed the way it was."
Let me ELI5 it for you: It was specifically designed to emit assembly in a single pass because of the constraints of the time.
WTF does "Hur Dur Rust Goodest!" comments mean in this context?
I probably should have replied under the other comment. I was also referring to your
> No, I didn't - I asked how sum types were supposed to work in an era of 64KB memory systems.
But context got lost between replies.
> that's why C is what it is
C famously had a big redesign in 1990. The language of today isn't the same K&R printed.