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C: Everyone's favourite programming language isn't a programming language

4 points by Katydid 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago
Time for another LISP machine, where the OS and the "system language" are the same thing. Base it on Lua and have their wonderful FFI / C interface layer tooling work for you. Or we can admit that the problems have little to do with the hardware and much more to do with how humans conceptualize it; there's plenty of languages out there that "better match the hardware" but they rarely seem to be a better match for the wetware. The endurance of C means that it is a tool whose handle fits well into the squishy brains we hold it with. The machine end of the tool, we've got so many options we can't enumerate them. We've got shit so sharp no one can make it work (VLIW, anyone?) The human side we keep using the same axe handles because thats what fits.
JoeyBananas 5y ago
I don't think C programmers care whether or not C is technically a programming language
secondcoming 5y ago
C is Latin. It's not quite dead yet but something spoken in C has the same meaning in all other languages.
Bostonian 5y ago
The underlying article was discussed with 300+ comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704642 .
PaulHoule 5y ago
An example I like is the AVR8 (used in Arduino) where you have 32 registers and can lay out storage you use beyond that statically, the way FORTRAN did it back in the day. Programs you write for that thing aren't going to be very large and if you compare assembly to C, C's calling conventions look like a lot of meaningless moving data on and off the stack with the one benefit being you could write a recursive function, but how much stack can you waste on a machine with 2k of RAM?
randomcarbloke 5y ago
Cool but is there a convincing argument anywhere?
zabzonk 5y ago
> "the CORBA Interface Definition Language IDL is… 'one of the most significant contributions in the history of computer science' This could only have been written by someone that has never used CORBA in a real-world situation - i.e. possibly one of the designers (sic) of CORBA. Unfortunately (for me) I have used CORBA, under extreme duress, in an investment bank trading environment, and it is beyond horrible. Anyway, this has nothing to do with C - CORBA is supposed to be language-independent. But perhaps there is a level of sarcasm I am missing out on here. Or an early April 1st?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  For an early-1990s design providing distributed programming with hardware-, language- and OS-independence, I'd say it's pretty good. Even the distributed/portable objects paradigm is now getting plenty of use due to the popularity of Actor models.
ekianjo 5y ago
> that C is not a low-level programming language Nobody ever described C as a low-level programming language. Even back in the 90s.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  Back in the 80s it was a low-level language as well as a high-level one. It was the language. I did do a bunch of low-level work with it, so there's that, though I also had to write enough assembly to go with it.

4 points by Katydid 5y ago

Time for another LISP machine, where the OS and the "system language" are the same thing. Base it on Lua and have their wonderful FFI / C interface layer tooling work for you. Or we can admit that the problems have little to do with the hardware and much more to do with how humans conceptualize it; there's plenty of languages out there that "better match the hardware" but they rarely seem to be a better match for the wetware. The endurance of C means that it is a tool whose handle fits well into the squishy brains we hold it with. The machine end of the tool, we've got so many options we can't enumerate them. We've got shit so sharp no one can make it work (VLIW, anyone?) The human side we keep using the same axe handles because thats what fits.

JoeyBananas 5y ago

I don't think C programmers care whether or not C is technically a programming language

secondcoming 5y ago

C is Latin. It's not quite dead yet but something spoken in C has the same meaning in all other languages.

Bostonian 5y ago

The underlying article was discussed with 300+ comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30704642 .

PaulHoule 5y ago

An example I like is the AVR8 (used in Arduino) where you have 32 registers and can lay out storage you use beyond that statically, the way FORTRAN did it back in the day. Programs you write for that thing aren't going to be very large and if you compare assembly to C, C's calling conventions look like a lot of meaningless moving data on and off the stack with the one benefit being you could write a recursive function, but how much stack can you waste on a machine with 2k of RAM?

randomcarbloke 5y ago

Cool but is there a convincing argument anywhere?

zabzonk 5y ago

> "the CORBA Interface Definition Language IDL is… 'one of the most significant contributions in the history of computer science' This could only have been written by someone that has never used CORBA in a real-world situation - i.e. possibly one of the designers (sic) of CORBA. Unfortunately (for me) I have used CORBA, under extreme duress, in an investment bank trading environment, and it is beyond horrible. Anyway, this has nothing to do with C - CORBA is supposed to be language-independent. But perhaps there is a level of sarcasm I am missing out on here. Or an early April 1st?

zozbot234 5y ago
For an early-1990s design providing distributed programming with hardware-, language- and OS-independence, I'd say it's pretty good. Even the distributed/portable objects paradigm is now getting plenty of use due to the popularity of Actor models.

ekianjo 5y ago

> that C is not a low-level programming language Nobody ever described C as a low-level programming language. Even back in the 90s.

karmakaze 5y ago
Back in the 80s it was a low-level language as well as a high-level one. It was the language. I did do a bunch of low-level work with it, so there's that, though I also had to write enough assembly to go with it.