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> I really hate how for microcontrollers the only two choices are either C++ or Micropython Why wouldn't you just use C for programming a microcontroller? Sure

by pkkm 3y ago

> I really hate how for microcontrollers the only two choices are either C++ or Micropython Why wouldn't you just use C for programming a microcontroller? Sure, it's not a great language for web backends, but microcontrollers are where it shines. You're probably not deploying 100,000 lines to a microcontroller for a personal project, so the lack of certain abstractions isn't going to be that painful. On the other hand, C lets you make the latency and memory usage 100% predictable, which can be a great asset.

moffkalast 3y ago
Why wouldn't you use assembly for programming a microcontroller? Sure, it's not a great language for web backends but microcontrollers are where it shines. /s Because as the OP states, it's an objectively (pun intended) terribly abstracted language. There is nothing 100% predictable about C except that you'll eventually get screwed because you didn't account for some random obscure thing that should never have even been possible to do. Any language that allows using static variables can have predictable memory consumption. There is nothing inherent to it that makes it better than a language that works at the same level but built to modern standards, except the piles upon piles of legacy code you can use.
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  Enable max warning level, use a static analyzer, and ASAN, UBSAN and TSAN (in order of importance), and most problems you listed just disappear. Most importantly though: don't use MSVC if you have the choice.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    Yeah if you want to kill yourself from frustrations, maybe. I'm not writing microcontroller code for the fucking space shuttle, and I would suspect most people aren't. C did a ton of things right, but it also did a ton of things wrong. Learning from that and moving on would be the sensible thing to do after 50 years.
    - flohofwoe 3y ago
      Tell me an alternative which ticks all the checkboxes and I'll switch immediately. C++ isn't it because the committee has completely lost focus since ca C++11, Rust isn't it because they completely forgot about ergonomics, simplicity and elegance on their quest to fix memory safety (and both C++ and Rust suffer from "design by committee"). Zig looks perfect so far, but it's too early to switch over yet. Any other promising candidates?
      - 9659 3y ago
        Ada. 83 or 95
        flohofwoe 3y ago
        Interesting choice, but Ada is probably even less popular than Zig. Even just requiring users to integrate my hypophetical Ada library source distribution into their project's build system files would most likely drown me in support tickets ;)
        pjmlp 3y ago
        It certainly has more production deployments than Zig might ever get.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        We are in Ada 2012 nowadays, with Ada 202x getting finalized. https://www.adaic.org/advantages/ada-202x/ https://www.adaic.org/advantages/ada-202x/
        9659 3y ago
        my point is either of these versions are very complete and usable implementations. more recent is even better.
      - versteegen 3y ago
        You didn't say what the checkboxes are, but... perhaps the 'BetterC' subset of D? https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#retained https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#retained Or D itself if you don't need a language as minimal as C. D is basically C++ redesigned and now that GCC includes D support by default I wonder whether it'll gain popularity.
- lumb63 3y ago
  > There is nothing predictable about C except that you’ll eventually get screwed … This has been the exact opposite of my experience. I’ve been writing C for 10 years and have yet to find a piece of code where I was surprised at what it did. That’s one thing I love about C, is it is entirely predictable. If it isn’t, my code is wrong. The language is rigorously specified. It is not hard to avoid undefined behavior. Contrast that with languages like C++ or Python which hide gotchas all over the place. In Python, one cannot even rely on a variable being a certain type, and if it isn’t, the program explodes. C++ allows plus to not be the inverse to minus, allows for hidden custom memory allocators (overloading the new operator). Template metaprogramming is borderline sorcery past the simplest of use cases. C++’s interoperability with C is an accident waiting to happen with all the reallocations which can occur without the user being aware. C lays flat out in front of the programmer all the unpredictable behavior that many other languages implement behind the programmer’s back. Sometimes that’s not desirable, and sometimes it is.
  - skitter 3y ago
    I agree with your point about Python, which is why I'm glad type hints see adoption but dismayed that they're essentially fancy comments that don't enforce the actual runtime types. The thing is, I'm not convinced avoiding UB is easy. E.g. what's the behavior of the following code? int16_t a = 20000; int16_t b = a + a;
    - lumb63 3y ago
      Agreed on the dismay regarding type annotations. My opinion is that potentially misleading code which gives a sense of safety when none exists is worse than dangerous code. It lowers the programmer’s guards, which can lead to more bugs. Integer overflow will result, I’m pretty sure. The largest value a signed 16 bit (so, 15 bit) can hold is 32767, IIRC. I can see where that’s unexpected for people whose brains aren’t wired in powers of 2. This is one area where I think Rust improves upon C, with its availability of overflow detection in arithmetic. It’s unfortunately verbose, but it enables greater safety.
      - 3y ago

by pkkm 3y ago

moffkalast 3y ago

Why wouldn't you use assembly for programming a microcontroller? Sure, it's not a great language for web backends but microcontrollers are where it shines. /s Because as the OP states, it's an objectively (pun intended) terribly abstracted language. There is nothing 100% predictable about C except that you'll eventually get screwed because you didn't account for some random obscure thing that should never have even been possible to do. Any language that allows using static variables can have predictable memory consumption. There is nothing inherent to it that makes it better than a language that works at the same level but built to modern standards, except the piles upon piles of legacy code you can use.

flohofwoe 3y ago
Enable max warning level, use a static analyzer, and ASAN, UBSAN and TSAN (in order of importance), and most problems you listed just disappear. Most importantly though: don't use MSVC if you have the choice.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Yeah if you want to kill yourself from frustrations, maybe. I'm not writing microcontroller code for the fucking space shuttle, and I would suspect most people aren't. C did a ton of things right, but it also did a ton of things wrong. Learning from that and moving on would be the sensible thing to do after 50 years.
  - flohofwoe 3y ago
    Tell me an alternative which ticks all the checkboxes and I'll switch immediately. C++ isn't it because the committee has completely lost focus since ca C++11, Rust isn't it because they completely forgot about ergonomics, simplicity and elegance on their quest to fix memory safety (and both C++ and Rust suffer from "design by committee"). Zig looks perfect so far, but it's too early to switch over yet. Any other promising candidates?
    - 9659 3y ago
      Ada. 83 or 95
      - flohofwoe 3y ago
        Interesting choice, but Ada is probably even less popular than Zig. Even just requiring users to integrate my hypophetical Ada library source distribution into their project's build system files would most likely drown me in support tickets ;)
        pjmlp 3y ago
        It certainly has more production deployments than Zig might ever get.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        We are in Ada 2012 nowadays, with Ada 202x getting finalized. https://www.adaic.org/advantages/ada-202x/ https://www.adaic.org/advantages/ada-202x/
      - 9659 3y ago
        my point is either of these versions are very complete and usable implementations. more recent is even better.
    - versteegen 3y ago
      You didn't say what the checkboxes are, but... perhaps the 'BetterC' subset of D? https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#retained https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html#retained Or D itself if you don't need a language as minimal as C. D is basically C++ redesigned and now that GCC includes D support by default I wonder whether it'll gain popularity.
lumb63 3y ago
> There is nothing predictable about C except that you’ll eventually get screwed … This has been the exact opposite of my experience. I’ve been writing C for 10 years and have yet to find a piece of code where I was surprised at what it did. That’s one thing I love about C, is it is entirely predictable. If it isn’t, my code is wrong. The language is rigorously specified. It is not hard to avoid undefined behavior. Contrast that with languages like C++ or Python which hide gotchas all over the place. In Python, one cannot even rely on a variable being a certain type, and if it isn’t, the program explodes. C++ allows plus to not be the inverse to minus, allows for hidden custom memory allocators (overloading the new operator). Template metaprogramming is borderline sorcery past the simplest of use cases. C++’s interoperability with C is an accident waiting to happen with all the reallocations which can occur without the user being aware. C lays flat out in front of the programmer all the unpredictable behavior that many other languages implement behind the programmer’s back. Sometimes that’s not desirable, and sometimes it is.
- skitter 3y ago
  I agree with your point about Python, which is why I'm glad type hints see adoption but dismayed that they're essentially fancy comments that don't enforce the actual runtime types. The thing is, I'm not convinced avoiding UB is easy. E.g. what's the behavior of the following code? int16_t a = 20000; int16_t b = a + a;
  - lumb63 3y ago
    Agreed on the dismay regarding type annotations. My opinion is that potentially misleading code which gives a sense of safety when none exists is worse than dangerous code. It lowers the programmer’s guards, which can lead to more bugs. Integer overflow will result, I’m pretty sure. The largest value a signed 16 bit (so, 15 bit) can hold is 32767, IIRC. I can see where that’s unexpected for people whose brains aren’t wired in powers of 2. This is one area where I think Rust improves upon C, with its availability of overflow detection in arithmetic. It’s unfortunately verbose, but it enables greater safety.
    - 3y ago