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> I do think you’ve identified a significant rift between those that prefer C and those who do not. I agree. I think the article is very right in identifying t

> I do think you’ve identified a significant rift between those that prefer C and those who do not. I agree. I think the article is very right in identifying that C developers look at programming differently. I think that is a good thing. Even as a Die-Hard C programmer, I celebrate that people use other languages and especially that people are developing new languages like Rust, Odin, Zig and so on. I don't think it wrong for someone to reject C, if its not right for them. Do what works for you. I do think that given Cs massive success, people should perhaps be a bit more interested to figure out why, instead of just dismissing it so fast.

comfypotato 3y ago
Your comments on this thread up to this point sound like a religious fanatic. I greatly enjoyed reading. Goes to show why it’s called “The C Religion”.
- quelsolaar 3y ago
  I think, most designers of languages want abstractions, convenience, and clevernes. So for people who don't want that we have to cling on to C since there aren't other options ;-)
  - rewmie 3y ago
    > I think, most designers of languages want abstractions, convenience, and clevernes. You get that in C as well in the form of libraries and frameworks. Today you saw a post in HN on how to do object oriented programming with C. Some time ago people shared C frameworks to enforce memory safety. There are generic data structures libraries for C as well. I think your jab on how C programmers don't want abstractions, convenience, or cleverness is a weak strawman. It's obviously not it. What I think C programmers value is expressiveness and speed, and avoid bloat and overall inefficiencies, and C detractors don't want to address that because it forces them to face the real world tradeoffs which expose the shortcomings of their personal choices. There's a pervasive fear of missing out on the latest and greatest, and an irrational need to jump onto bandwagons, and C is extreme opposite of it. And yet it still outperforms anything that came after.
melagonster 3y ago
writing C like doing extreme sport, respect but I don't want to try it soon. thanks all developers of interpreter, because they wrote it with C, so I don't need to write C.
- rramadass 3y ago
  You have the wrong idea and doing yourself a disservice by not learning C. It is not as difficult as people make it out to be.
vba616 3y ago
I learned C in the 1980s. At that time, for practical purposes, it seemed it was the same as Pascal, only with less verbose syntax - { } instead of begin/end. But then I discovered Usenet and the - I don't know exactly how to describe it - the cult of undefined behavior, and the people who care only about standards and not reality. A basic, straightforward language like what people say C is, is certainly useful. I don't know Rust, and I don't have any plans to learn it. As I think we all are aware, C originated before computers were standardized on 8 bit bytes, ASCII, Unicode, and 32/64 bit words. So, I mean, no matter how much people say it's appealing because it's simple and reflects the nature of the hardware, it really doesn't. Is it not true that the Linux kernel is compiled with GNU extensions and not standard C?
- rewmie 3y ago
  > But then I discovered Usenet and the - I don't know exactly how to describe it - the cult of undefined behavior, and the people who care only about standards and not reality. I don't understand what you tried to say. The standard specifies how the language actually works, and therefore what developers can reliably do with it. How exactly do you see this as a break from reality?
  - vba616 3y ago
    If you stopped at that sentence, then the rest of my comment might clarify. It's hard for me to elaborate further without any idea of your background. How long have you been programming in C? Have you encountered TAOCP and MIX/MMIX? Do you write strictly standards compliant C? Did you use to read or post on comp.lang.c? For reference, here is a list of things that are/were off topic: https://benpfaff.org/writings/clc/off-topic.html https://benpfaff.org/writings/clc/off-topic.html Dennis Ritchie posted on clc in 1999 and was told he was off topic. It has passed into history as a "joke". "DECtapes are highly platform specific, and are not covered by ANSI C, which is the subject of this newsgroup (comp.lang.c). Try a DEC-related newsgroup. If you want us to comment on your source code, please post it in the body of your email. What was your C question?" https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/wbzzoySmeMk https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/wbzzoyS... Face saving aside, that was normal treatment for newbies other than Dennis Ritchie, so if it was a joke, who/what exactly was being made fun of?

comfypotato 3y ago

Your comments on this thread up to this point sound like a religious fanatic. I greatly enjoyed reading. Goes to show why it’s called “The C Religion”.

quelsolaar 3y ago
I think, most designers of languages want abstractions, convenience, and clevernes. So for people who don't want that we have to cling on to C since there aren't other options ;-)
- rewmie 3y ago
  > I think, most designers of languages want abstractions, convenience, and clevernes. You get that in C as well in the form of libraries and frameworks. Today you saw a post in HN on how to do object oriented programming with C. Some time ago people shared C frameworks to enforce memory safety. There are generic data structures libraries for C as well. I think your jab on how C programmers don't want abstractions, convenience, or cleverness is a weak strawman. It's obviously not it. What I think C programmers value is expressiveness and speed, and avoid bloat and overall inefficiencies, and C detractors don't want to address that because it forces them to face the real world tradeoffs which expose the shortcomings of their personal choices. There's a pervasive fear of missing out on the latest and greatest, and an irrational need to jump onto bandwagons, and C is extreme opposite of it. And yet it still outperforms anything that came after.

melagonster 3y ago

writing C like doing extreme sport, respect but I don't want to try it soon. thanks all developers of interpreter, because they wrote it with C, so I don't need to write C.

rramadass 3y ago
You have the wrong idea and doing yourself a disservice by not learning C. It is not as difficult as people make it out to be.

vba616 3y ago

I learned C in the 1980s. At that time, for practical purposes, it seemed it was the same as Pascal, only with less verbose syntax - { } instead of begin/end. But then I discovered Usenet and the - I don't know exactly how to describe it - the cult of undefined behavior, and the people who care only about standards and not reality. A basic, straightforward language like what people say C is, is certainly useful. I don't know Rust, and I don't have any plans to learn it. As I think we all are aware, C originated before computers were standardized on 8 bit bytes, ASCII, Unicode, and 32/64 bit words. So, I mean, no matter how much people say it's appealing because it's simple and reflects the nature of the hardware, it really doesn't. Is it not true that the Linux kernel is compiled with GNU extensions and not standard C?

rewmie 3y ago
> But then I discovered Usenet and the - I don't know exactly how to describe it - the cult of undefined behavior, and the people who care only about standards and not reality. I don't understand what you tried to say. The standard specifies how the language actually works, and therefore what developers can reliably do with it. How exactly do you see this as a break from reality?
- vba616 3y ago
  If you stopped at that sentence, then the rest of my comment might clarify. It's hard for me to elaborate further without any idea of your background. How long have you been programming in C? Have you encountered TAOCP and MIX/MMIX? Do you write strictly standards compliant C? Did you use to read or post on comp.lang.c? For reference, here is a list of things that are/were off topic: https://benpfaff.org/writings/clc/off-topic.html https://benpfaff.org/writings/clc/off-topic.html Dennis Ritchie posted on clc in 1999 and was told he was off topic. It has passed into history as a "joke". "DECtapes are highly platform specific, and are not covered by ANSI C, which is the subject of this newsgroup (comp.lang.c). Try a DEC-related newsgroup. If you want us to comment on your source code, please post it in the body of your email. What was your C question?" https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/wbzzoySmeMk https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/wbzzoyS... Face saving aside, that was normal treatment for newbies other than Dennis Ritchie, so if it was a joke, who/what exactly was being made fun of?