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Ride a bicycle and learn C (I've been doing the first for 50+ years and the second for 30+ [0]). Some skills never go out of fashion. [0] Personally, I found

by hazeii 6y ago

Ride a bicycle and learn C (I've been doing the first for 50+ years and the second for 30+ [0]). Some skills never go out of fashion. [0] Personally, I found learning C harder than falling off bicycles.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
I am very surprised my C (C++) skills seem to be in demand still - even seems to be a bit of a renaissance at the moment.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Once C survives 100 years, it will likely survive 1000
  - justtart 6y ago
    Yup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
- neltnerb 6y ago
  Why are you surprised? I have to write firmware all the time and everyone still uses C unless they're dedicated to another language for some reason. I can see being into Rust. I haven't had any reason to use it yet.
  - tasuki 6y ago
    Memory safety? Isn't that a reason to use Rust over C, that there are some classes of errors one can move from runtime to compile-time?
    - neltnerb 6y ago
      I'm not saying there's no reasons to use Rust over C, but I am saying that I'm not surprised C is still highly valued. I was still being forced to use assembly for firmware a decade after I learned C. I will not be at all surprised if firmware stays in C until Rust has been practical for use in firmware for several years as well. I don't doubt it'll happen, I haven't written a line of assembly for my firmware in a decade either, but consider how many hundreds of thousands of lines of C there are in the libraries for just one target architecture. It sounds cool and useful and I'm looking forward to it, but every time I start asking around if Rust is worth the effort the answer from people who use Rust a lot is "not really" because my projects aren't big complex firmware beasts. I am not surprised that a firmware developer with expertise in C can easily find work.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        Some of us are working on it ;)
        neltnerb 6y ago
        Thank you :-D
undebuggable 6y ago
> Ride a bicycle With or without the helmet? Because the opinions are divided.
- hazeii 6y ago
  If you wouldn't ride a bike because a helmet was mandatory, then without.

by hazeii 6y ago

chadcmulligan 6y ago

I am very surprised my C (C++) skills seem to be in demand still - even seems to be a bit of a renaissance at the moment.

mensetmanusman 6y ago
Once C survives 100 years, it will likely survive 1000
- justtart 6y ago
  Yup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
neltnerb 6y ago
Why are you surprised? I have to write firmware all the time and everyone still uses C unless they're dedicated to another language for some reason. I can see being into Rust. I haven't had any reason to use it yet.
- tasuki 6y ago
  Memory safety? Isn't that a reason to use Rust over C, that there are some classes of errors one can move from runtime to compile-time?
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    I'm not saying there's no reasons to use Rust over C, but I am saying that I'm not surprised C is still highly valued. I was still being forced to use assembly for firmware a decade after I learned C. I will not be at all surprised if firmware stays in C until Rust has been practical for use in firmware for several years as well. I don't doubt it'll happen, I haven't written a line of assembly for my firmware in a decade either, but consider how many hundreds of thousands of lines of C there are in the libraries for just one target architecture. It sounds cool and useful and I'm looking forward to it, but every time I start asking around if Rust is worth the effort the answer from people who use Rust a lot is "not really" because my projects aren't big complex firmware beasts. I am not surprised that a firmware developer with expertise in C can easily find work.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      Some of us are working on it ;)
      - neltnerb 6y ago
        Thank you :-D

undebuggable 6y ago

> Ride a bicycle With or without the helmet? Because the opinions are divided.

hazeii 6y ago
If you wouldn't ride a bike because a helmet was mandatory, then without.