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In spite of all your arguments even today most important software powering modern computing are written in C, this speaks volume about its simplicity. I am sur

In spite of all your arguments even today most important software powering modern computing are written in C, this speaks volume about its simplicity. I am sure there will still be critical software powered by C 40 years later. Rust will take another decade or two to reach that level of simplicity and ease of use still not sure if it will cross the threshold to replace C, when an average developer needs to spend years just understanding basic syntax, use of language and its traits. C is like English, Hindi or simplified Chinese not very pure with flaws and ambiguity, still became lingua Franca of the majority world due to simplicity.

pjmlp 7y ago
Yet Google, Apple, Microsoft are driving C's replacement for better alternatives, go figure. https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/16/a-proactive-approach-to-more-secure-code/ https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/16/a-proactive-appro... https://security.googleblog.com/2019/08/adopting-arm-memory-tagging-extension.html https://security.googleblog.com/2019/08/adopting-arm-memory-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/10/introducing-ndk-r21-our-first-long-term.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/10/introducin... https://developer.apple.com/swift/#fast https://developer.apple.com/swift/#fast English only became the lingua Franca after the two big wars, and even then, good luck trying to make use of English in some world regions. I recommend reading a bit about the history of lingua francas since the beginning of mankind. "The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel" https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lingua-Franca-English-Return/dp/0802717713 https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lingua-Franca-English-Return/dp/...
JustFinishedBSG 7y ago
> this speaks volume about its simplicity. No, it's just an indication of how many existing C code already exists that you have to conform to.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
> even today most important software powering modern computing are written in C, this speaks volume about its simplicity. C code is simple in the sense that it closely matches the simple binary interfaces of the compiled code: plain symbols with simple calling conventions. Anything more complicated than this presents a seemingly insurmountable barrier to code reuse thats leads people to rewrite stuff in C. The current situation is any code that's meant to be reused will be written in C so that every other language has access to the resulting functionality. The higher level languages either have much more complicated binary interfaces or are completely virtualized so code reuse is extremely difficult. C++ and Rust can export C interfaces but the benefits of those languages are not available to the users of the code because the interface has been reduced to C.

pjmlp 7y ago

Yet Google, Apple, Microsoft are driving C's replacement for better alternatives, go figure. https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/16/a-proactive-approach-to-more-secure-code/ https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/07/16/a-proactive-appro... https://security.googleblog.com/2019/08/adopting-arm-memory-tagging-extension.html https://security.googleblog.com/2019/08/adopting-arm-memory-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/10/introducing-ndk-r21-our-first-long-term.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/10/introducin... https://developer.apple.com/swift/#fast https://developer.apple.com/swift/#fast English only became the lingua Franca after the two big wars, and even then, good luck trying to make use of English in some world regions. I recommend reading a bit about the history of lingua francas since the beginning of mankind. "The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel" https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lingua-Franca-English-Return/dp/0802717713 https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lingua-Franca-English-Return/dp/...

JustFinishedBSG 7y ago

> this speaks volume about its simplicity. No, it's just an indication of how many existing C code already exists that you have to conform to.

matheusmoreira 7y ago

> even today most important software powering modern computing are written in C, this speaks volume about its simplicity. C code is simple in the sense that it closely matches the simple binary interfaces of the compiled code: plain symbols with simple calling conventions. Anything more complicated than this presents a seemingly insurmountable barrier to code reuse thats leads people to rewrite stuff in C. The current situation is any code that's meant to be reused will be written in C so that every other language has access to the resulting functionality. The higher level languages either have much more complicated binary interfaces or are completely virtualized so code reuse is extremely difficult. C++ and Rust can export C interfaces but the benefits of those languages are not available to the users of the code because the interface has been reduced to C.