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Why aren't there C conferences? (2018)
- sylware 4y agoEven if I think the C syntax is already too rich, in the end, it is absurdely simple compared to other abysmaly complex syntaxes, like c++... yeah, probably not worth the conference.
- smeyer 4y agoIf you look at the talk schedule for something like PyCon[0], not much of it is about updates to the language syntax and things of that nature. Most of the time is discussing applications of the language, packages, et cetera. [0] https://us.pycon.org/2022/schedule/talks/ https://us.pycon.org/2022/schedule/talks/
- mhh__ 4y agoExcited programmers who want to go to conferences don't care about C anymore, IMO
- omgmajk 4y agoSome of us fall under that category. But I guess we're not that many.
- marginalia_nu 4y agoI'd love to go to a C conference, not gonna lie. But I've been a graybeard ever since I was a child.
- ungamedplayer 4y agolBorn with a manual in one hand and a PDP11 in the other.
- marginalia_nu 4y agoCouldn't get to sleep without hugging my K&R.
- sgt 4y agoI don't know, PDP11's are pretty heavy. That'd be one flat hand.
- __d 4y agoThere's always the LSI11 for those of us with .. compressible appendages.
- pklausler 4y agoYou kids with your shiny PDP-11s. Me, I had to start out with a machine that didn't even have load or store instructions (CDC 6600).
- drivers99 4y agoOut of curiosity, I checked wikipedia which says "In the 6600, loading the value from memory would require one instruction, and adding it would require a second one" so I'm curious what the distinction is if it's not a load instruction
- pklausler 4y agoThe address registers were paired up with the data registers, so modifying A1 would cause an implicit load into X1, for example. A6 and A7 modifications caused implicit stores from X6/X7. So with careful register assignment and some offset initialization of address registers beforehand, array processing loops could be encoded in remarkably few instructions.
- lionkor 4y agothats a very measured response, im sure you're right and thats not just a really biased view /s
- queuebert 4y agoOr the converse: People who care about C don't want to go chit chat about it every year.
- arianvanp 4y agoI'd argue though not directly C conferences there _are_ definitely conferences where C developers come together. * https://lpc.events/ https://lpc.events/ * https://fosdem.org/ https://fosdem.org/ * https://all-systems-go.io/ https://all-systems-go.io/
- spaceywilly 4y agoThere’s plenty of conferences for embedded developers as well. I would argue that having a conference around a job function makes a lot more sense than having a conference around a tool, which is what a programming language is.
- ummonk 4y agoThat’s what the article says too.
- gjadi 4y agoLots of interesting links to talks related to C at the end of the articles!
- bluetomcat 4y agoFor the same reason that carpenters do not have conferences about saws and hammers. It's an old tool with well-known deficiencies and it doesn't attract an idealistic, evangelical crowd that can write manifestos and narratives about it.
- Cupertino95014 4y agoI'm SO enjoying all the comments about "yes, there are saw and hammer conferences." I'll have to ask my HVAC technician neighbor if he's ever been to one.
- someweirdperson 4y agoI doubt it is a good idea to work on an HVAC with a hammer.
- Cupertino95014 4y agoAnother pedantipoint for you. Save 'em, collect 'em, trade 'em.
- casion 4y agoWe absolutely do have those conferences! I've been to dozens. Lots of idealists and evangelicals in the woodworking world as well, probably more so than any other world I've been in. Makes technology look fairly tame.
- SeanLuke 4y agoYou've been to dozens of conferences about hammers?
- galangalalgol 4y agoThey have hand held precision cnc machines that use computer vision to register to the work piece and compensate for human error and execute the file. I can't wait for people to start asking stable diffusion or dall-e for ideas. "unusual danish modern canopy bed 85mm" I'm sure they won't run out of advances to talk about. And people keep reviving old techniques that got ignored too, or ones from other cultures.
- janmarsal 4y agoThere are no low hanging fruits to talk about in such a mature and well made language.
- defrost 4y agoAside from the preprocessor and the C std library ... but they're the obvious less well made bits of fruit.
- renox 4y agoIn case you're serious: A discussion about strncpy/strlcpy.. on LWN: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/905777/a6dba1b2ed54f04f/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/905777/a6dba1b2ed54f04f/
- PaulHoule 4y agoI think C puts the C in Cthulhu. The C spec is a half generation behind the Common LISP spec which set the standard for how you specify languages like Java and Python. The K&R book is poorly organized and the language contains various mistakes, such as the way the parser needs access to the symbol table that deform the C++ language today. It was minimal, it was viable, and it was in the right place at the right time so it was available on old microcomputers, 8-bit micros, MS DOS, 32/64-bit, web assembly. It competes and wins against assembly code on the AVR-8 (where it boggles my mind how many cycles C wastes following calling conventions in my simple Arduino programs) because I can compile a C program for a much better performing board. So it is with us more than FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBOL, assembler, etc.
- Banana699 4y agoWhat a marvel of a well made language it is, with all its well made security holes and its exquisite null corruptions, truly a thing of beauty.
- janmarsal 4y agoimperfection is the key to perfection
- sys_64738 4y agoThey call them security conferences nowadays.
- vitaminCPP 4y agoWhile the title may say otherwise, the article is worth a read just for the talks recommandation.
- treeman79 4y agoBeen noticing a trend where conferences have gone highly woke. Last one I attended had a young woman was berating all the men and demanding we apologize for things others have done. Complaining about it got one person banned. DHH Being banned by Ruby Conference is another example. I went to be part of cool tech, not radical politics. I Haven’t done another conference since.
- Demonsult 4y agoI wonder if anyone can provide an example where collective guilt was meaningful or productive in any way.
- RhysU 4y agoThe guilt of original sin driving individuals towards redemption via organized religion thereby allowing increasingly large, stable civil structures in Europe.
- californiadreem 4y agoAugustine and a clear exposition of original sin was in the late 4th-early 5th century, about four hundred years after the Roman Empire had already effectively integrated quite a bit of Europe and Asia into a diverse and sophisticated civilization that wouldn't be seen again for another millenia. Around six hundred years after Augustine, Europe had William the Conquerer and the Holy Roman Empire, I guess? Five hundred years after that, Europe had the Renaissance based in a reclamation of the heritage of the ancient world. I don't think original sin did a very good job of achieving the integration of anyone.
- RhysU 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin says "The belief began to emerge in the 3rd century..." which is early enough to establish mild causality for Emperor Constantine. Remember, he didn't have to believe it only to suspect that it would be useful. The whole thing was meant to be tongue in cheek. :)
- belter 4y agoAll these talk about C * https://startupstash.com/c-cpp-conferences/ https://startupstash.com/c-cpp-conferences/ Always felt like the ACCU, was the closest to a C Conference, something that, as many mentioned here, does not really exist.
- IshKebab 4y agoI don't think I saw a single C talk at the few years I've been to the ACCU conference. I think there's just rarely anything new to say about C since it's so old and stable.
- belter 4y ago"Modern C and What We Can Learn From It - Luca Sas [ ACCU 2021 ]" - https://youtu.be/QpAhX-gsHMs https://youtu.be/QpAhX-gsHMs "Linux User/Kernel ABI: the realities of how C and C++ programs really talk to the OS - Greg Law" - https://youtu.be/4CdmGxc5BpU https://youtu.be/4CdmGxc5BpU
- rebolek 4y agoPeople using C don't have a time for conferences because they have a work to do.
- fredrikholm 4y agoI can't decide if this is a statement or a joke. I agree with both.
- agentultra 4y agoUndefined behaviour detected.
- jonahx 4y agoI'm not the one to give it, but I'd like to see an answer based on pure economics, because I think that's what drives most conferences.
- Koshkin 4y agoComing out of the third work meeting since 7AM I am starting to think: Yes, we need more of those! The more the merrier!
- rr808 4y agoI haven't been to a conference in 10 years now. Online talks seem much more convenient. Are in person conferences back after covid?
- jeffrallen 4y agoC programmers are anti-social. :)
- rjsw 4y agoThere will be ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14 meetings as well as those for national mirror committees like ANSI X3J11, there isn't much point in having a conference outside this standardization process.
- matt_heimer 4y agoNo interesting in paying for pointers.
- effnorwood 4y ago
- synergy20 4y agoCan someone start one? I'd love to go. I used c++, golang, python, javascript over the years, even tried Rust briefly. Turns out I'm most productive in C, I can get stuff done the fastest way in C and one month later I can still understand the code. Posix C with all its libraries can do so many wonders, many of the traps and pitfalls are well known, fuzzing test can further secure the code, and, it's just that unbeatable-ly fast. Adding a little practical OOD into C if your code base is large, even with dtor|ctor|RAIIs(a bit tricky, but manageable). I call this my C+ style.
- jstimpfle 4y agoI feel the same. I'm tired of languages, can't even muster the energy anymore to give Rust a serious try - although I'm considering I'll have to do it in the future anyway, given that the hype hasn't ebbed away. To me, C is almost entirely a non-language. It's a culture where you focus on what you want the computer to do (and optimize that), instead of optimizing what you write (and ending up with something convoluted that will be hard to read in 1 month). I refuse to do things that many don't even give a second thought - such as, do I really need to implement the Into<T> trait and use x.into() to do a conversion? Isn't it better if I just write the function that I'm using explicitly? That way it will be easier to see what function is used, and the likelyhood that I'll have to change that code later I deem comparatively small. C has its flaws but I know them quite well by know and have learned to walk around them. And it has some "flaws" that are misunderstood strengths to a degree. More and more "humble" languages have been started in the recent years, but there is little incentive for me to try and switch. And even of those, almost all add some clever things that I'm nervous might be _too_ clever.
- outworlder 4y ago> I feel the same. I'm tired of languages, can't even muster the energy anymore to give Rust a serious try - although I'm considering I'll have to do it in the future anyway, given that the hype hasn't ebbed away. At this point, it probably won't die out. The time to die was in the beginning, when they set to do overly ambitious things that had a high chance of not working. People have been wanting what it offers for quite a long time.
- sparcpile 4y agoThere is no money in a C/C++ Conference. Conferences are held so that the organizers can make a profit from tickets and booth fees.
- Mimmy 4y agoC++ at least has their flagship CppCon no?
- sparcpile 4y agoYes, C++ has CppCon, so that conference is making money for the organizers.
- boris 4y agoCppCon is organized by the Standard C++ Foundation (and a ton of volunteers), which is a non-profit organization. When I was involved quite a few years ago, I believe they were making a modest "profit" on the conference which I am pretty sure was all wiped out during COVID due to the hotel commitments they enter into.
- pjc50 4y agoThe C++ conference has .. problems. https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1560539777300037632 https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1560539777300037632
- IshKebab 4y agoThere are plenty of C++ conferences though.
- yreg 4y agoNot necessarily, companies sometimes organize a conference at break-even (or at a loss) with motivation to build a name, attract clients, for hiring, etc.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago> Second, C has a tendency to be conservative, changing and growing very slowly. This is a feature. That's it. I can pick up K&R and still be writing useful programs in a very short time. Of course, in a lot of shops there are libraries that you have to use other than the standard one. I can imagine a conference about those. A boring conference.
- locke3891 4y agoBecause it would take years to prepare for but would be run and completed in seconds?
- rffn 4y agoThe Embedded Systems conference used to be a C conference to some extend.
- hnthrowaway0328 4y agoTBH I always wonder why do we need conferences at all? Anyone who wants to share something can always pull up a youtube video. If a committee wants to discuss something they can always pull up a Zoom meeting. I'm not sure why they exist at all except for people who want to travel and sell things/ideas. But since I have never attended any conference, I must missing something important here.
- yoyohello13 4y agoThe valuable thing about conferences is the “hallway” chats and networking opportunities. If you just want to listen to talks then you can pretty much get that online, but running into other like minded people and grabbing a beer together is a fun experience.
- lexandstuff 4y agoI've been to plenty of conferences, and I agree with you. A talk seems a poor way to consume information compared to a blog or a video. Combine that with seeing multiple talks on the same day, you basically retain nothing. The best you can do is note which talks seemed interesting and then do more research on the topic later on. People say they're good for networking, but I find it has the same problem: you end up meeting a firehose of people for moments at a time, and it becomes near impossible to remember which to follow up.
- pjmlp 4y agoNetworking and selling yourself as consultant, book writer, library author,....
- vmilner 4y agoProbably the closest there is: https://accu.org/conf-main/main/ https://accu.org/conf-main/main/
- bhedgeoser 4y agoFor the same reason there aren't any oxygen conferences.
- optimalsolver 4y agoGive it a while.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago> Why aren't there C conferences? seems a question that could give birth to Chuck Norris style jokes.
- dang 4y agoRelated: Why Aren't There C Conferences? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18504879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18504879 - Nov 2018 (372 comments)
- 29athrowaway 4y agoThere are conferences for products written in C.
- a-dub 4y ago> The closest thing we have to a C conference every year is CppCon. A lot of CppCon isn’t really just about C++, and the subjects of many of the talks are easily applied to C, since C++ builds so much upon C. In a sense, a subset of CppCon could be considered a C conference. That’s what I’m looking for when I watch the CppCon presentations each year on YouTube. that's right. C as a community got subsumed into C++ in the 80s/90s/00s. same happened with The C Users Journal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Users_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Users_Journal
- _8j50 4y agoC has competions instead. IOCCC rocks!
- pvorb 4y ago> Second, C has a tendency to be conservative, changing and growing very slowly. This is a feature, and one that is often undervalued by developers. I really appreciate languages that do change slowly. One of the languages I really like is Kotlin, but it has the problem that there are new features every few months. This is a distraction most of the time and it leads to inconsistent code bases.