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> I haven't met or know anyone mastering C/C++ (especially C++), and doubt I'll ever hear about one. C can definitively be mastered. C at it's core is pragmati

> I haven't met or know anyone mastering C/C++ (especially C++), and doubt I'll ever hear about one. C can definitively be mastered. C at it's core is pragmatic minimalism. The basic ideas are very simple. If you want to be a language lawyer and know the standard completely (including all historical accidents), it can get complex, but still manageable. But anyways, you shouldn't be a language lawyer. That's not C. Make maintainable programs instead, stay in the middle of the road. C gets out of the programmer's way. It's not about mastering C, but about mastering programming. And while I agree there's much bad C software out there: I haven't seen one maintainable non-bloated Java project. Here is one master of C that I'm sure you know: Linus Torvalds. Of course there are many, many more. Just remember it's not about C, but programming machines in general.

vardump 9y ago
> C can definitively be mastered. If that's true, how come there are almost no widely used network facing C programs that didn't have plenty of security vulnerabilities? (Anything written by Daniel J. Bernstein doesn't count, because there's no way he's a mere mortal. :))
- shaklee3 9y ago
  Which language has? Keep in mind market share, so don't say Go.
- littlestymaar 9y ago
  Even djb had flaws in his C code despite being a semi-god. It took a $10k bounty and several years to be found but it was there !
- hedora 9y ago
  OpenBSD has done a great job, especially if you look at what they achieved, how fast they got there, and what resources were at their disposal.
- qznc 9y ago
  Qmails direct competitor Postfix? Postfix has more, but Qmail has one with a higher score: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8450/product_id-14794/Postfix-Postfix.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8450... vs https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-86/product_id-143/Dan-Bernstein-Qmail.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-86/p... Postfix is also much more widely used than qmail.
Avshalom 9y ago
for, while, do...while, recursion, goto: is not a sign of "pragmatic minimalism" unless one choses to define it tautologically as "what C has".
- hedora 9y ago
  Pragmatic == close enough to all of the popular and contemporary assembler flow control constructs.
- jstimpfle 9y ago
  "recursion" is not a concept in C. Just function calls. "for" and "while" are very simple concepts and basically the same. They are very simple and well known idioms and not C specific. Most languages have both - not a big deal. I use "for" mostly for iterating over arrays, and I have otherwise mostly while loops and while(1) loops with manual breaking. Goto, you just can't do without it. Also not saying that in some cases even C is too much abstraction. But in general, its memory abstractions and its function call abstraction have proved to be very effective helping humans develop in a modular fashion.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    > Goto, you just can't do without it. Strange, the last time I used it I was still doing Basic in the early 90's, or when I do some Assembly programming. So yeah, we can do without it, as long as the languages are powerful enough.
    - vardump 9y ago
      I do find forward gotos useful in C. For error handling and breaking out of nested scopes. But only when goto is simpler and easier to understand than the alternative. Not saying there's no use for backward gotos, just don't remember ever needing them. Maybe they could be useful for some C code generation cases or perhaps for retrying some operation? What really annoys me are C++ exceptions used for flow control. Surprise gotos. I loved exceptions long ago at first, but over time the feeling has shifted more and more towards hate. Exceptions make code bases so much harder to understand. Especially when combined with inheritance.
pcwalton 9y ago
> I haven't seen one maintainable non-bloated Java project I also haven't seen one large-scale network-facing C project written using reasonable development practices (i.e. not absurdly expensive formal verification) that hasn't had some sort of terrible remote code execution vulnerability. By contrast, Java programs tend to be far less vulnerable to this kind of problem. (The closest thing is probably bugs with attacker controlled java.io.Serializable, which while severe are much less frequent than RCE in C programs.) > Here is one master of C that I'm sure you know: Linus Torvalds. I agree that Linus is a master of C. Linux is also an excellent example of the above problems with C.
- jstimpfle 9y ago
  I wouldn't say "mastering C" should imply "never have any security issues". And many vulnerabilities are conceptual and don't have anything to do with the use of C. Use your tools wisely. Architect programs for clear data flow. Validate inputs as soon as possible. Don't do (de)serialization by hand. By all means use a managed "memory safe" language if you have many data accesses that are not behind a validation gateway. But for large amounts of data or complex software, that's still not an option. C is still the only language in which I can write software of advanced complexity - because it does not get in my way.
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    The entire industry has been successfully writing programs that process "large amounts of data" and "complex software" in languages other than C for decades.
    - jstimpfle 9y ago
      Counter-examples: Kernels, Game Engines, Software with lots of small "objects". I once had to write a SAT solver in Java (dozens of millions of clauses) and it was a disaster which I could only rescue by converting to highly unidiomatic Java code. It would have been much more straightforward in C.
red75prime 9y ago
> C at it's core is pragmatic minimalism. Pragmatic minimalism as it was for the hardware at the beginning of the 1970s, to be exact.
- jstimpfle 9y ago
  The C machine model is still the only model I can easily program and not make a mess. And without being a hardware architecture expert: Has so much changed on the assembly level? And what other languages are truer to today's machines?
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    None of them are, not even Assembly, unless the CPU executes the opcodes directly in hardware without micro-code help. The C machine model says nothing about vector instructions, instruction re-ordering, NUMA, GPGPU, IO ports, Harvard architecture, multi-core.
    - comex 9y ago
      As of C11, the C machine model does (finally) include threads and memory ordering, so at least you can say it says something about multi-core…
  - red75prime 9y ago
    Modern C compilers do enormous job of optimizing C code, despite its shortcomings like the lack of distinction between pointers and arrays. You don't need to worry too much about that, maybe you'll need to sprinkle vectorization intrinsics or assembler code if the compiler isn't smart enough, or to add a couple of memory barriers.
    - vardump 9y ago
      Would mostly sign that, but not without inspecting security or performance critical code in disassembler. Modern compilers are still rather bad at vectorization. What's worse, those optimizations are often unstable. A small change might make code several times slower. Performance regression tests and when that fails, vector intrinsics are a must.

vardump 9y ago

> C can definitively be mastered. If that's true, how come there are almost no widely used network facing C programs that didn't have plenty of security vulnerabilities? (Anything written by Daniel J. Bernstein doesn't count, because there's no way he's a mere mortal. :))

shaklee3 9y ago
Which language has? Keep in mind market share, so don't say Go.
littlestymaar 9y ago
Even djb had flaws in his C code despite being a semi-god. It took a $10k bounty and several years to be found but it was there !
hedora 9y ago
OpenBSD has done a great job, especially if you look at what they achieved, how fast they got there, and what resources were at their disposal.
qznc 9y ago
Qmails direct competitor Postfix? Postfix has more, but Qmail has one with a higher score: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8450/product_id-14794/Postfix-Postfix.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-8450... vs https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-86/product_id-143/Dan-Bernstein-Qmail.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-86/p... Postfix is also much more widely used than qmail.

Avshalom 9y ago

for, while, do...while, recursion, goto: is not a sign of "pragmatic minimalism" unless one choses to define it tautologically as "what C has".

hedora 9y ago
Pragmatic == close enough to all of the popular and contemporary assembler flow control constructs.
jstimpfle 9y ago
"recursion" is not a concept in C. Just function calls. "for" and "while" are very simple concepts and basically the same. They are very simple and well known idioms and not C specific. Most languages have both - not a big deal. I use "for" mostly for iterating over arrays, and I have otherwise mostly while loops and while(1) loops with manual breaking. Goto, you just can't do without it. Also not saying that in some cases even C is too much abstraction. But in general, its memory abstractions and its function call abstraction have proved to be very effective helping humans develop in a modular fashion.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  > Goto, you just can't do without it. Strange, the last time I used it I was still doing Basic in the early 90's, or when I do some Assembly programming. So yeah, we can do without it, as long as the languages are powerful enough.
  - vardump 9y ago
    I do find forward gotos useful in C. For error handling and breaking out of nested scopes. But only when goto is simpler and easier to understand than the alternative. Not saying there's no use for backward gotos, just don't remember ever needing them. Maybe they could be useful for some C code generation cases or perhaps for retrying some operation? What really annoys me are C++ exceptions used for flow control. Surprise gotos. I loved exceptions long ago at first, but over time the feeling has shifted more and more towards hate. Exceptions make code bases so much harder to understand. Especially when combined with inheritance.

pcwalton 9y ago

> I haven't seen one maintainable non-bloated Java project I also haven't seen one large-scale network-facing C project written using reasonable development practices (i.e. not absurdly expensive formal verification) that hasn't had some sort of terrible remote code execution vulnerability. By contrast, Java programs tend to be far less vulnerable to this kind of problem. (The closest thing is probably bugs with attacker controlled java.io.Serializable, which while severe are much less frequent than RCE in C programs.) > Here is one master of C that I'm sure you know: Linus Torvalds. I agree that Linus is a master of C. Linux is also an excellent example of the above problems with C.

jstimpfle 9y ago
I wouldn't say "mastering C" should imply "never have any security issues". And many vulnerabilities are conceptual and don't have anything to do with the use of C. Use your tools wisely. Architect programs for clear data flow. Validate inputs as soon as possible. Don't do (de)serialization by hand. By all means use a managed "memory safe" language if you have many data accesses that are not behind a validation gateway. But for large amounts of data or complex software, that's still not an option. C is still the only language in which I can write software of advanced complexity - because it does not get in my way.
- pcwalton 9y ago
  The entire industry has been successfully writing programs that process "large amounts of data" and "complex software" in languages other than C for decades.
  - jstimpfle 9y ago
    Counter-examples: Kernels, Game Engines, Software with lots of small "objects". I once had to write a SAT solver in Java (dozens of millions of clauses) and it was a disaster which I could only rescue by converting to highly unidiomatic Java code. It would have been much more straightforward in C.

red75prime 9y ago

> C at it's core is pragmatic minimalism. Pragmatic minimalism as it was for the hardware at the beginning of the 1970s, to be exact.

jstimpfle 9y ago
The C machine model is still the only model I can easily program and not make a mess. And without being a hardware architecture expert: Has so much changed on the assembly level? And what other languages are truer to today's machines?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  None of them are, not even Assembly, unless the CPU executes the opcodes directly in hardware without micro-code help. The C machine model says nothing about vector instructions, instruction re-ordering, NUMA, GPGPU, IO ports, Harvard architecture, multi-core.
  - comex 9y ago
    As of C11, the C machine model does (finally) include threads and memory ordering, so at least you can say it says something about multi-core…
- red75prime 9y ago
  Modern C compilers do enormous job of optimizing C code, despite its shortcomings like the lack of distinction between pointers and arrays. You don't need to worry too much about that, maybe you'll need to sprinkle vectorization intrinsics or assembler code if the compiler isn't smart enough, or to add a couple of memory barriers.
  - vardump 9y ago
    Would mostly sign that, but not without inspecting security or performance critical code in disassembler. Modern compilers are still rather bad at vectorization. What's worse, those optimizations are often unstable. A small change might make code several times slower. Performance regression tests and when that fails, vector intrinsics are a must.