Talk:Bc (programming language)

Computing Start‑class

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Computer science Start‑class Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computer science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Computer science related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Computer scienceWikipedia:WikiProject Computer scienceTemplate:WikiProject Computer scienceComputer science

Start

This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Things you can help WikiProject Computer science with:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests :
- Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet
Cleanup :
- Computer science articles needing attention
- Computer science articles needing expert attention
Copyedit :
- Computing
Expand :
- Computer science
Infobox :
- Computer science articles without infoboxes
Maintain :
- Timeline of computing 2020–present
Photo :
- Find pictures for the biographies of computer scientists (see List of computer scientists)
- Computing articles needing images
Stubs :
- Computer science stubs
Unreferenced :
- WikiProject Computer science/Unreferenced BLPs
Project-related :
- Tag all relevant articles in Category:Computer science and sub-categories with {{WikiProject Computer science}}

Just to head off any claims that the external link is self-promotion, I've got nothing to do with the CyrexSoft site. I spent about an hour implementing arccosine in bc before finding this link, so it would have helped me greatly. --Dantheox 06:20, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A paragraph and additional reference relating to the dialect C-BC have been added. -- Mark Hopkins, 5 February 2006

Actual usage

It would be nice to see a list of its actual uses and users today.

Is it actually used by anyone for practical purposes? I've seen that it's called "an arbitrary precision calculator dating back from Unix stone age" (in the Parrot virtual machine source tree). --Amir E. Aharoni 11:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I may be a little biased, since I developed C-BC. But, in fact, I use the language more frequently than C, itself, because of its interpretative ability and high precision math. Often, I will also use it for prototyping C programs or for writing elaborate shell scripts. A link to the source code for the larger language C-BC was not provided on the main page. But a copy of the source can be found in alt.sources from October 3, 1993, by doing a search in Google's USENET archive (Google groups).

-- Mark, 13 September 2006

not everyone knows C

Can we drop the references to C.

I am sure this can be described without referencing a language many people don't know.

PS I use occasionally, but like most unix tools , I am sure I'd use it more if I udnerstood it better.

DGerman 00:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would be a little difficult, since BC is based on C and was intently designed as a stripped down version of C, originally to provide a front-end for DC with a syntax more amenable for C programmers.

-- Mark, 12 December 2006

Requested move

Bc programming language → Bc (Unix) — The current article name doesnt conform to the naming conventions. Bc is a Unix command line utility and is not a complete programming language, so I consider Bc (Unix) to be a better move than Bc (programming language). John Vandenberg 02:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Add # '''Support''' or # '''Oppose''' on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in support of the move

Survey - in opposition to the move

Discussion

Are there non-unix implementations of bc? If so, that would resolve this immediately. bc is most certainly a complete programming language. It can be thought of as a simplified variant of C with built-in support for arbitrary-precision arithmetic. --dantheox 08:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I dont think that merely having non-unix implementations would be sufficient on its own. e.g. sort (Unix) is also part of MSYS. If there were pre-Unix impl. of bc, that would definately mean "(Unix)" isnt the right tail.

OTOH, I'm not really overly concerned about what name is chosen, so I'm happy to go with bc (programming language) if you think that's the more reasonable name. John Vandenberg 09:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History

Do we know where, when, why and by whom bc was first created? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.105.29.6 (talk) 19:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it called "bc"?

"Dc" is called "dc" because it stands for desk calculator, but where did the name "bc" come from? Does the 'c' in "bc" stand for calculator, like in "dc", or is it a reference to the C programming language because of its syntax, or neither? 69.54.60.34 (talk) 16:17, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dangerous

This program is outright dangerous. It outputs "1" for "5/4". Yes yes, I know I need to input the expression differently, but for any casual user who didn't grow up in the backward UNIX world, the fact that this program gives totally wrong results for the simplest expressions is dangerous.