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(postgres hacker) Yes, I think that will be the case. Obviously not a scientifically measured, by I think we're already seeing that average C skills for new co

(postgres hacker) Yes, I think that will be the case. Obviously not a scientifically measured, by I think we're already seeing that average C skills for new contributors are lower than what they used to be - of course that might just be my slowly greying beard speaking. So far I think people just "learn on the job", but how much delta that bridge I am not sure. I think eventually we'll have to make it easier to use some other language in parts of the system (e.g. in-core data type implementations). But realistically I think that's still a bit off.

koolba 3y ago
> ... I think we're already seeing that average C skills for new contributors are lower than what they used to be - of course that might just be my slowly greying beard speaking. That's definitely true. Just like everything else, actual experience matters and the C-share of public codebases (out of the total set) is less and less every year. So while someone may have studied the docs and overall language mechanics, he'd be less likely to have actually worked on a different C code base. Even less so for people who have worked on portable C software. > I think eventually we'll have to make it easier to use some other language in parts of the system (e.g. in-core data type implementations). But realistically I think that's still a bit off. There is an elegance to having the C structs directly match the data layout. But I suppose that it's only elegant if your mind has been wired from the start to think about byte alignment and word sizes. Coming from the world of interpreted languages with dynamic objects as bags of properties, I bet it's nowhere near as magical.
- eatonphil 3y ago
  > There is an elegance to having the C structs directly match the data layout. Doesn't this ability significantly depend on the system (and also becomes less relevant when you have variable length data)?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

koolba 3y ago

> ... I think we're already seeing that average C skills for new contributors are lower than what they used to be - of course that might just be my slowly greying beard speaking. That's definitely true. Just like everything else, actual experience matters and the C-share of public codebases (out of the total set) is less and less every year. So while someone may have studied the docs and overall language mechanics, he'd be less likely to have actually worked on a different C code base. Even less so for people who have worked on portable C software. > I think eventually we'll have to make it easier to use some other language in parts of the system (e.g. in-core data type implementations). But realistically I think that's still a bit off. There is an elegance to having the C structs directly match the data layout. But I suppose that it's only elegant if your mind has been wired from the start to think about byte alignment and word sizes. Coming from the world of interpreted languages with dynamic objects as bags of properties, I bet it's nowhere near as magical.

eatonphil 3y ago
> There is an elegance to having the C structs directly match the data layout. Doesn't this ability significantly depend on the system (and also becomes less relevant when you have variable length data)?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]