4 ms·

Are there fewer C programmers than their used to be? Are they getting generally dumber for some reason? I get that younger devs often don't have the low-level

by jmull 3y ago

Are there fewer C programmers than their used to be? Are they getting generally dumber for some reason? I get that younger devs often don't have the low-level background older devs necessarily have, but all of the useful skills are learnable (and they have less bad things to unlearn, too). All good devs, of any age, have learned to learn what they need when they need it. I don't think anything has changed there. I think the issue is more that key positions in these more prominent well established projects are usually filled and haven't been opening up.

lmm 3y ago
Fewer new programmers are learning or being taught C. And fewer mid-career programmers are choosing it as a language to learn. Of course any competent programmer can pick up most languages. But projects written in a language that's in decline still have a harder time attracting developers (look at anything written in COBOL or Perl or TCL): it's less good for their CV than a more popular language, and the level of support in tooling and the library ecosystem tends to be worse, which means you spend more time working on the scaffolding and less time doing interesting work. And frankly C is already a language where you spend a lot of time on ceremony and bookkeeping and relatively little on the essence of the problem.
- thesnide 3y ago
  Yet, I am mentoring some young devs. And i see a pattern as I advise them to learn C. Some do have "eureka" moments and begin to understand many things about their current higher level language of choice. Others don't and struggle all along. Most often than not, the 1rst category will have a much brighter career in programming than the 2nd one. And that is perfectly fine, as none can do everything. So, i really think that C is my canary. Much like ancient greek and latin are in the academics. Except that C is actually still very useful by itself
  - lmm 3y ago
    Any arbitrary obtuse puzzle will distinguish the more intelligent students from the less so. Doesn't mean it represents any deep insight or useful thing. (Have you tried the same exercise with any other "hard" language in place of C - Assembly, Brainfuck, Forth, APL, Haskell?)

by jmull 3y ago

lmm 3y ago

Fewer new programmers are learning or being taught C. And fewer mid-career programmers are choosing it as a language to learn. Of course any competent programmer can pick up most languages. But projects written in a language that's in decline still have a harder time attracting developers (look at anything written in COBOL or Perl or TCL): it's less good for their CV than a more popular language, and the level of support in tooling and the library ecosystem tends to be worse, which means you spend more time working on the scaffolding and less time doing interesting work. And frankly C is already a language where you spend a lot of time on ceremony and bookkeeping and relatively little on the essence of the problem.

thesnide 3y ago
Yet, I am mentoring some young devs. And i see a pattern as I advise them to learn C. Some do have "eureka" moments and begin to understand many things about their current higher level language of choice. Others don't and struggle all along. Most often than not, the 1rst category will have a much brighter career in programming than the 2nd one. And that is perfectly fine, as none can do everything. So, i really think that C is my canary. Much like ancient greek and latin are in the academics. Except that C is actually still very useful by itself
- lmm 3y ago
  Any arbitrary obtuse puzzle will distinguish the more intelligent students from the less so. Doesn't mean it represents any deep insight or useful thing. (Have you tried the same exercise with any other "hard" language in place of C - Assembly, Brainfuck, Forth, APL, Haskell?)