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The problem is that a lot of C devs have been coding in C and only in C all their lives. They cannot accept that people coming from other languages want to be a

The problem is that a lot of C devs have been coding in C and only in C all their lives. They cannot accept that people coming from other languages want to be able to read their code, or that a security audit needs to be done over thousands and thousands of their lines and that these C hacks are an awful thing to read for someone who wants to quickly review the code.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Yes, I agree with you. That is the driving force, even with other languages besides C too, and influences many things, from code readability to interview techniques.
userbinator 8y ago
Replace C with Japanese or Chinese and you'll see just how absurd your argument is. If you want to read something in a language you don't know, you learn the language. Every profession has its own terms of art, its own abbreviations and lingo, and to suggest that those don't have any value is just ridiculous. I seriously don't understand this attitude. You don't see other professions saying how they should be understandable by everyone who hasn't studied them. Why should programming be any different? I blame the "everyone can code" charlatans...
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  It seems like your analogy with other natural languages is just a false comparison. You say, > “If you want to read something in a language you don't know, you learn the language” but this means you’re missing the point. If you are writing something like a tech manual in Japanese, and you know ahead of time that it will be required that sometimes people totally unfamiliar with nuanced Japanese (but with high skill at picking up badic ideas in any language) have to rely on your manual, then how should you write it? The foolish answer is to say you’ll write it with advanced Japanese language constructs and then turn around and say, “oh well, novices who want to rely on the manual should have gone and learned advanced Japanese.” The smart answer is to say you’ll use self-discipline and restrain yourself from nuanced Japanese, and instead write in a way that novices have a good chance of decoding with minimal extra effort, and of course advanced Japanese readers will also still be able to get what they need too. This is such a self-centered idea, approaching it like, “I can write whatever code I want using whatever idioms and it’s someone else’s fault if they didn’t learn the language sufficiently ahead of time before they found themselves needing to quickly read my code.”

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

Yes, I agree with you. That is the driving force, even with other languages besides C too, and influences many things, from code readability to interview techniques.

userbinator 8y ago

Replace C with Japanese or Chinese and you'll see just how absurd your argument is. If you want to read something in a language you don't know, you learn the language. Every profession has its own terms of art, its own abbreviations and lingo, and to suggest that those don't have any value is just ridiculous. I seriously don't understand this attitude. You don't see other professions saying how they should be understandable by everyone who hasn't studied them. Why should programming be any different? I blame the "everyone can code" charlatans...

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
It seems like your analogy with other natural languages is just a false comparison. You say, > “If you want to read something in a language you don't know, you learn the language” but this means you’re missing the point. If you are writing something like a tech manual in Japanese, and you know ahead of time that it will be required that sometimes people totally unfamiliar with nuanced Japanese (but with high skill at picking up badic ideas in any language) have to rely on your manual, then how should you write it? The foolish answer is to say you’ll write it with advanced Japanese language constructs and then turn around and say, “oh well, novices who want to rely on the manual should have gone and learned advanced Japanese.” The smart answer is to say you’ll use self-discipline and restrain yourself from nuanced Japanese, and instead write in a way that novices have a good chance of decoding with minimal extra effort, and of course advanced Japanese readers will also still be able to get what they need too. This is such a self-centered idea, approaching it like, “I can write whatever code I want using whatever idioms and it’s someone else’s fault if they didn’t learn the language sufficiently ahead of time before they found themselves needing to quickly read my code.”