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Nice and clear article. I like an idea of looking at quality of the process and not only the product. It was pleasant to read. I didn't like that C itself was

by lew89 6y ago

Nice and clear article. I like an idea of looking at quality of the process and not only the product. It was pleasant to read. I didn't like that C itself was missing, because C is still my language of choice for some tasks and I still use it because I'm happy about it, I don't feel I would need any of its competitors. Maybe if this benchmark included C it would be some argument to give them a try. So I decided to do it for you. It took me 30 minutes, only change is that I don't check if file is binary, I guess. I liked that I was doing it in C because I know it and I'm comfortable with it. Few checks in man and everything's clear. Only disadvantage of C is that it doesn't have standard API for directories, so my code is only for POSIX. Here's the code: https://github.com/BartekLew/dumbgrep https://github.com/BartekLew/dumbgrep The other thing are sources you've done. They are almost the same (it'd be nice to see the more feeling of the language, idiomatic code, etc.) and I didn't like reading them at all, not a clean code and all are longer than my C code. Another thing is that C has very narrow application nowadays. A benchmark should be focussed on them and not on generic algorithms.

david_for_you 6y ago
This seems to be missing a return in the NULL check for handle in the match_file function. This leads to fgets being called with a NULL pointer, which I don't know what it does, it may be OK. I would argue that this is why a "better C" can be useful, it's the kind of error that would be much harder to make in rust.
- lew89 6y ago
  There is missing NULL check, but it doesn't crash, because the function would get nonexistent filename only if filesystem driver would do something strange (or file would be deleted just between readdir and fopen). xD I also noticed, that I don't close files and directories. Not a big deal, because fully functional and 100% correct program wasn't the goal here. :) EDIT: Actually fopen would return NULL when file is not readable. My bad. Anyway, such problems are trivial to debug.
  - carols10cents 6y ago
    I like that I don't have to spend the time debugging trivial problems like these in Rust though. The compiler catches them for me, and I get more time and brain power to spend debugging nontrivial problems. It adds up.
    - lew89 6y ago
      Everything is matter of price. Such an error is nobrainer actually, because just before I get an error message. If I don't know that yet, I run on gdb and everything's clear. Couple of seconds. How manyof them I have to do to ballance learning a new language(and I'm not sure if I like it eventually)? If I was a system software developer, that would probably be a good choice. I program mostly in high level languages, so maybe not. :)
      - Ar-Curunir 6y ago
        Maybe it doesn’t matter for small programs, but probably in large programs tracing the control flow would be non trivial, so, as the parent said, over the lifetime of the program it would add up
        lew89 6y ago
        Is there any language that can save you from control tracing problem? I think that well made architecture is only solution. In fact I would say that C is easier in that respect (if you don't use goto), because all control flow is explicit. In other languages you have exceptions, polymorphism, implicit constructors, destructors (and their order in case of inheritance, templates, etc. C is dead simple in that respect. If you can't write right concise code no language can help you. However of course, as C is more verbose it is more challanging to structure code well. And to some extend other language can help you move the point where control flow becomes a problem. The biggest problem in C programming for me is memory management, but maybe it's just a lack of experience. Certainly C++ is convenient with smart pointers and automaticall called destructors. Anyway, i didn't consider big project a scope here. I wouldn't write realy big programs in wine. I would try to create as small independent parts as possible.
Ygg2 6y ago
Curious. Did you use proper strings or null terminated character array?

by lew89 6y ago

david_for_you 6y ago

This seems to be missing a return in the NULL check for handle in the match_file function. This leads to fgets being called with a NULL pointer, which I don't know what it does, it may be OK. I would argue that this is why a "better C" can be useful, it's the kind of error that would be much harder to make in rust.

lew89 6y ago
There is missing NULL check, but it doesn't crash, because the function would get nonexistent filename only if filesystem driver would do something strange (or file would be deleted just between readdir and fopen). xD I also noticed, that I don't close files and directories. Not a big deal, because fully functional and 100% correct program wasn't the goal here. :) EDIT: Actually fopen would return NULL when file is not readable. My bad. Anyway, such problems are trivial to debug.
- carols10cents 6y ago
  I like that I don't have to spend the time debugging trivial problems like these in Rust though. The compiler catches them for me, and I get more time and brain power to spend debugging nontrivial problems. It adds up.
  - lew89 6y ago
    Everything is matter of price. Such an error is nobrainer actually, because just before I get an error message. If I don't know that yet, I run on gdb and everything's clear. Couple of seconds. How manyof them I have to do to ballance learning a new language(and I'm not sure if I like it eventually)? If I was a system software developer, that would probably be a good choice. I program mostly in high level languages, so maybe not. :)
    - Ar-Curunir 6y ago
      Maybe it doesn’t matter for small programs, but probably in large programs tracing the control flow would be non trivial, so, as the parent said, over the lifetime of the program it would add up
      - lew89 6y ago
        Is there any language that can save you from control tracing problem? I think that well made architecture is only solution. In fact I would say that C is easier in that respect (if you don't use goto), because all control flow is explicit. In other languages you have exceptions, polymorphism, implicit constructors, destructors (and their order in case of inheritance, templates, etc. C is dead simple in that respect. If you can't write right concise code no language can help you. However of course, as C is more verbose it is more challanging to structure code well. And to some extend other language can help you move the point where control flow becomes a problem. The biggest problem in C programming for me is memory management, but maybe it's just a lack of experience. Certainly C++ is convenient with smart pointers and automaticall called destructors. Anyway, i didn't consider big project a scope here. I wouldn't write realy big programs in wine. I would try to create as small independent parts as possible.

Ygg2 6y ago

Curious. Did you use proper strings or null terminated character array?