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C is the only language that there's a strong argument for it being a fundamental language to know. Because almost every other language, OS and device driver is
by mkramlich 16y ago
C is the only language that there's a strong argument for it being a fundamental language to know. Because almost every other language, OS and device driver is written in it. Not everything, of course, but it's a huge percentage.
I really like some other languages other than C. But it's hard for me to make as strong of a case for any other language as a "must know" language.
- tetha 16y agoI think this difficulty to make a strong point towards a single other language is that the area where languages excel are usually populated by multiple languages. Do you want to look at a good object oriented language? Take a look at one of Python, Java, C#, Ruby and probably Perl with the right modules. Do you want to take a good look at functional programming? Look at one of Haskell, OCaml, SML or something along these line. Do you want something to prototype rapidly? Python, Ruby, probably Scala. Do you want web programming? Ruby on Rails, Django, PHP, one of those. Do you want embedded programming? Well.. look at C. Or C++ with C embedded, as some maniacs use it.
- infinite8s 16y agoC is portable assembly, and since assembly will always be the interface to the hardware, C will probably be around for a long time. Everyone should know C and one high level language (be it Lisp, Haskell, Lua, Python, Ruby).