4 ms·

Any programming language that needs an entire blog post about how to declare string constants "the right way" is a programming language that needs to disappear.

torstenvl 10y ago
Any poster that needs to post comments about how any language requiring real understanding needs to disappear needs to disappear.
- irundebian 10y ago
  Haha, real understanding. Any language which requires a standard of 700 pages should be seem suspicious. And any language, which lead to thousands of vulnerabilities needs to disappear.
seibelj 10y ago
C is not that far removed from assembly, and gives the programmer strong control over how the program operates. It is a tool, and if you need safety over control / performance / portability / etc., then don't use C.
- irundebian 10y ago
  Being a language not far form assembly shouldn't mean being broken and error prone.
  - seibelj 10y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "broken". The programmer must provide 100% correct code, as in any language. It is harder to write secure code in C than in other languages, and in return you get near-maximum control over the program.
    - irundebian 10y ago
      The point is, if it's possible to have maximum control over the program without hardness of writing secure code. And it is, as Rust and Ada are showing.
      - nercht12 10y ago
        I don't know about you, but I always found Rust a real pain to use. One could say Rust is "secure", but you can still break Rust too. Incompetency knows no bounds. It's better just to learn to be competent than complain it's not dumbed-down enough for one's way of thinking. Hence, I should still learn Rust, and you can still learn C.
        irundebian 10y ago
        I think there so reason to be competent, whatever you mean it, to complain about C. What I learned about C is that you can never be competent enough for it. And that's the problem. A technology which isn't designed to get under control by humans under a reasonable amount of time is bad. C is an old language, designed with the knowledge in the 70 and influenced by the needs of the later decades. At its time it was revolutionary, but today it's not fulfilling our needs. I'm not talking about theoretic problems of C. C vulnerabilities are hunting us from day to day. Everyone is knowing that, but people still find it cool to code in C, want to be competent in C or dare to write security-critical applications in C, as though nothing had happened. I don't want to be competent in C, because it's overly complex and it's error prone for humans to write safe, secure and readable C code. And every good software developer should know that's wise to don't use overly sophisticated technologies.
  - contravariant 10y ago
    Well, it doesn't.
contravariant 10y ago
I hope you're not also against programming languages that don't allow you to specify if a string reference needs to be constant or not, or there'd be no programming languages left.
irundebian 10y ago
You're totally right. But wannabe C experts will never accept that. Stupid broken language. The only valid reason why it should be used is for legacy reasons.
- 2trill2spill 10y ago
  I find it funny that your bashing the C language but your screen name is "irundebian" you realize that Debian is almost entirely written in C right? > The only valid reason why it should be used is for legacy reasons. Also there are many projects even today where C is the only choice, like embedded programming, some micro controllers only have a C compiler available.
  - irundebian 10y ago
    And because I hate C I should run an operating system written in Rust or Ada or what? Don't understand what's so funny about that. > Also there are many projects even today where C is the only choice, like embedded programming, some micro controllers only have a C compiler available. Yes, as I said, for legacy reasons.
    - 2trill2spill 10y ago
      > And because I hate C I should run an operating system written in Rust or Ada or what? Don't understand what's so funny about that. Do you hate C? You clearly like software written in it, ie Debian. > Yes, as I said, for legacy reasons. Starting a new software project wether it be embedded programing or programing on big X86-64 machines is not legacy software.
      - irundebian 10y ago
        Yes I hate C. > You clearly like software written in it, ie Debian. Yes, but not because it's written in C, but because of its functionality, which can of course be implemented in other languages. > Starting a new software project wether it be embedded programing or programing on big X86-64 machines is not legacy software. The problem is why you should start a new software project, which uses C. Most used reason probably is, that C is the standard, there exists only a toolchain for C and other legacy reasons.
nom 10y ago
No, all the programming languages that trade a huge amount of CPU cycles and RAM for a small increase in convenience need to disappear. C/C++ is there to stay for a looong time.
nallerooth 10y ago
I think that C is an excellent choice for -some- projects. I also like that it is easy to see how things work at a low level, since C is relatively close to the metal and maps quite well to assembly.

torstenvl 10y ago

Any poster that needs to post comments about how any language requiring real understanding needs to disappear needs to disappear.

irundebian 10y ago
Haha, real understanding. Any language which requires a standard of 700 pages should be seem suspicious. And any language, which lead to thousands of vulnerabilities needs to disappear.

seibelj 10y ago

C is not that far removed from assembly, and gives the programmer strong control over how the program operates. It is a tool, and if you need safety over control / performance / portability / etc., then don't use C.

irundebian 10y ago
Being a language not far form assembly shouldn't mean being broken and error prone.
- seibelj 10y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "broken". The programmer must provide 100% correct code, as in any language. It is harder to write secure code in C than in other languages, and in return you get near-maximum control over the program.
  - irundebian 10y ago
    The point is, if it's possible to have maximum control over the program without hardness of writing secure code. And it is, as Rust and Ada are showing.
    - nercht12 10y ago
      I don't know about you, but I always found Rust a real pain to use. One could say Rust is "secure", but you can still break Rust too. Incompetency knows no bounds. It's better just to learn to be competent than complain it's not dumbed-down enough for one's way of thinking. Hence, I should still learn Rust, and you can still learn C.
      - irundebian 10y ago
        I think there so reason to be competent, whatever you mean it, to complain about C. What I learned about C is that you can never be competent enough for it. And that's the problem. A technology which isn't designed to get under control by humans under a reasonable amount of time is bad. C is an old language, designed with the knowledge in the 70 and influenced by the needs of the later decades. At its time it was revolutionary, but today it's not fulfilling our needs. I'm not talking about theoretic problems of C. C vulnerabilities are hunting us from day to day. Everyone is knowing that, but people still find it cool to code in C, want to be competent in C or dare to write security-critical applications in C, as though nothing had happened. I don't want to be competent in C, because it's overly complex and it's error prone for humans to write safe, secure and readable C code. And every good software developer should know that's wise to don't use overly sophisticated technologies.
- contravariant 10y ago
  Well, it doesn't.

contravariant 10y ago

I hope you're not also against programming languages that don't allow you to specify if a string reference needs to be constant or not, or there'd be no programming languages left.

irundebian 10y ago

You're totally right. But wannabe C experts will never accept that. Stupid broken language. The only valid reason why it should be used is for legacy reasons.

2trill2spill 10y ago
I find it funny that your bashing the C language but your screen name is "irundebian" you realize that Debian is almost entirely written in C right? > The only valid reason why it should be used is for legacy reasons. Also there are many projects even today where C is the only choice, like embedded programming, some micro controllers only have a C compiler available.
- irundebian 10y ago
  And because I hate C I should run an operating system written in Rust or Ada or what? Don't understand what's so funny about that. > Also there are many projects even today where C is the only choice, like embedded programming, some micro controllers only have a C compiler available. Yes, as I said, for legacy reasons.
  - 2trill2spill 10y ago
    > And because I hate C I should run an operating system written in Rust or Ada or what? Don't understand what's so funny about that. Do you hate C? You clearly like software written in it, ie Debian. > Yes, as I said, for legacy reasons. Starting a new software project wether it be embedded programing or programing on big X86-64 machines is not legacy software.
    - irundebian 10y ago
      Yes I hate C. > You clearly like software written in it, ie Debian. Yes, but not because it's written in C, but because of its functionality, which can of course be implemented in other languages. > Starting a new software project wether it be embedded programing or programing on big X86-64 machines is not legacy software. The problem is why you should start a new software project, which uses C. Most used reason probably is, that C is the standard, there exists only a toolchain for C and other legacy reasons.

nom 10y ago

No, all the programming languages that trade a huge amount of CPU cycles and RAM for a small increase in convenience need to disappear. C/C++ is there to stay for a looong time.

nallerooth 10y ago

I think that C is an excellent choice for -some- projects. I also like that it is easy to see how things work at a low level, since C is relatively close to the metal and maps quite well to assembly.