4 ms·

The only kind of programming language that is ever "finished" are ones that nobody uses.

• saagarjha 6y ago
  C was largely "finished" when it came out–future additions have not added much. And by "finished" I don't mean "never changes", I mean "finished enough for a 1.0".
  • the_hoser 6y ago
    That's not true at all. Modern C is very different from K&R C. It took 10 years for ANSI C (which is more or less what we know as C today) to be established. And embarrassingly longer for that standard to be widely implemented...
    • saagarjha 6y ago
      > Modern C is very different from K&R C. Aside from some syntax around function prototypes, it's really not, unless you are counting "people tend to use certain things less often" as how you're counting that difference.
      • the_hoser 6y ago
        You are aware that the standard library is a big part of the C specification, right?
        • saagarjha 6y ago
          If you're counting the language by "how many pages of specification" it takes up, perhaps. To me is the language is really like the many features it had when it came out, and then the standard library improvements since then have been "string routines" and then "more string routines" and then "atomics, and also some string routines". Now C++, that's a language that has changed a huge deal–your C++03 code is obviously out-of-place in a C++11 codebase, but nobody will bat an eye if you drop some C89 code in a C11 project.
          • the_hoser 6y ago
            It sounds like you actually haven't been using C for very long, if that's what you think standard library changes amounted to. By your definition, it hasn't changed too much since the release of B in 1969.
            • saagarjha 6y ago
              I've used C for long enough to meaningfully contribute to this conversation. And yes, by my definition C takes much of its inspiration from B, although there are enough differences that I would not claim that B is some sort of release of C.