crypto for the average programmer

[Travis H.]

On 12/19/05, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker <richard at levitte.org> wrote:
> C has three really strong points:
>
>  - portability.  It's one of the most wide-spread and portable
>   compiled languages that I know of.

I beg your pardon?  If I want to store 128 bits of information, and
access the 8 most significant bits, what portable data type would I
use? :)

The only way C is even remotely portable is with 30 years of #include
and typedef machinery, and POSIX, and many other standards.

>  - speed.  Most languages with the same level of portability as C that
>   I know of are interpreted.  They will probably never get to the
>   level of speed you can get with C.

The old joke is that C combines the speed and power of assembly
language with the portability of assembly language.

Ocaml can outperform C in some cases.  Java is within an order of magnitude---------------------------------------------------------------------
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