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C is like a high level assembly language. It maps very closely to how the computer actually runs programs. That, and it’s simplicity, make it a great way to lea
by slashdev 3y ago
C is like a high level assembly language. It maps very closely to how the computer actually runs programs. That, and it’s simplicity, make it a great way to learn.
It’s not usually a great idea for production code anymore, but for learning it’s fantastic.
- the_biot 3y agoThat old chestnut. C is nothing remotely like an assembly language, of any kind. It is a low-level programming language, but only compared to most languages. Disassemble some compiled C code sometime -- it's another world entirely.
- slashdev 3y agoI’ve programmed in both assembly and C, among other things. I stand by it, C is much closer to the machine than most languages.
- grumblingdev 3y agoI think Lisp won that battle. The core syntax was named after actual cpu registers (cdr/car).
- _a_a_a_ 3y agoSeriously? :) Is lambda calculus or the PDP instructions set a closer match to which language?
- kagevf 3y agoMaybe it is on a PDP-11 . . .
- discreteevent 3y agoC may not be the same as assembly language but the value of learning it is that in general it is the lowest level that we get to for most software. So, most programming languages are either compiled to C or have a virtual machine that is written in C. Many of the things our programs rely on are written in C, for example operating systems and databases. So in a way we can say that "the metal" is C and by understanding it we can potentially understand how our software works from top to bottom.