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Is C really this disparaged in Silly Valley?

• alfalfasprout 10y ago
  Yes. Keep in mind the vast majority of people on HN only work on end-user software (native and web apps). Yes, there are much better choices for the web when you need security, etc. In certain enterprise applications C are still the best choice. In finance, where I work, C and C++ still reign supreme. Why? There's already a huge multitude of great libraries developed over decades that are mature and battle-tested. Sure, you can write bindings for Rust/Go/D/whatever. But that's a ton of work for minimal benefit. Fact is, when you get on a plane the avionics software was likely written in C. NASA extensively uses C. The automotive industry extensively uses C. Oh, and a lot of this C is embedded so forget easy software updates. I think a lot of the hate for C comes from the fact that it lets you do bad things without alerting you. C is a language that mandates solid engineering practices. A good C codebase can be elegant, correct, and fully testable. The language doesn't force this, however. But a nice, well written C library will stand the test of time.
  • kabdib 10y ago
    Pretty much what I thought. (I've been programming C since 1979, and C++ since 1987, but left Silly Valley 15 years ago).