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C (or something very like it) is effectively the core of my mental VM. It's an extremely useful mental abstraction even though all I write is C++, JS, Python, a
by jdashg 7y ago
C (or something very like it) is effectively the core of my mental VM. It's an extremely useful mental abstraction even though all I write is C++, JS, Python, and GLSL.
Being able to estimate "what does this code compile into" is extremely powerful for understanding code, as well as exploring the possibility space of solutions. ("Is it even possible to express this?")
It's not an exact mapping to hardware, but it's such a useful level of abstraction to have on tap, even if I never want to write it directly.
- kitd 7y agoAgreed. I spent 10 years writing C in the 90s but very little since. Even still, I find my understanding of eg Go is based on what is being allocated where, compared to colleagues from eg Java or JS, who have never dealt with that, and who focus on syntax and features. One was raving about slices, which are a struct of ptr + length built into the syntax. Obvious with a C background.