I think the parent was trying to say "no one has managed to use C safely in a non-trivial application", not "no one has managed to use mudflap or valgind on a nontrivial application".
I didn't say anything about whether either was correct. I simply was trying to help people avoid talking past each other, because the parent seems to be addressing something the grandparent didn't say.
People have unquestionably used Valgrind to find errors, in trivial and nontrivial applications. The question here is whether the result is "safe code". It may be, but the parent does not seem to be speaking to that question, hence my attempt at clarification.
I understood you, I was replying to the thread in general.
> ... the result is "safe code". It may be, but the parent does not seem to be speaking to that question ...
Here we differ. The ability to successfully run valgrind (and presumably remove all errors) does actually speak to the question, and it answers that the result is in fact safe code.
It is not necessary for the compiler to assure safe code, it's perfectly possible to do it with an external tool. And as a result C is a safe language as long as you use both tools.
If we presume "... and remove all errors" (and this can be done reliably), then yes that is speaking directly to the question and you have safe code. I would be surprised if the comment I replied to had intended to be asserting that, though. If that is what they intended, it would have been good for them to be more explicit about what amounts to the strongest claim made in the comment.
