3 ms·

The UX of the BNF notation. I am partial to hand-coded recursive descent purely because I struggled with Lex and Yacc too much when I tried.

chasil 2y ago
I commiserate, it can be unforgiving, and the use of C is admittedly out of vogue.
- gavinhoward 2y ago
  Oh, I love C. [1] But yes, unforgiving. And a lot of magic, with special variables, macros, and functions that you must know. And unclear scoping. [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/why-i-use-c-when-i-believe-in-memory-safety/ https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/why-i-use-c-when-i-believe-i...
  - kelnos 2y ago
    OT, but: I remember reading that post of yours a year or so ago! It was so bizarre to me, but also really fun. I feel like you are among what is probably a very small group of people who could write something security-sensitive in C, and I would feel comfortable using it. (I am still less than thrilled that I have to rely on OpenSSL, regardless of the process improvements its developer team has made in more recent years.) I still (unfortunately, IMO) write a lot of C. Back in 2004 I thought it was great fun. But now that I've worked in safer, batteries-included languages, I find C to be a huge drag. I'm so much more productive in Rust or even Java. I could never ever ever ever approach the level of rigor you bring to your C code; I just don't find doing all that stuff to be fun or interesting... to the contrary, it feels like a huge drag: if I were "required" to do all that, I just wouldn't write any code at all in C in the first place, knowing that having to do all the testing and fuzzing and static analysis stuff would burn me out. Anyhow, I hope I don't sound like I'm being critical... quite the opposite. I just think we live in a magnificent world where people's brains can work so so so differently when it comes to the same topic.
    - gavinhoward 2y ago
      No offense taken; I know my brain is different. :) > I feel like you are among what is probably a very small group of people who could write something security-sensitive in C, and I would feel comfortable using it. This is probably the most complimentary thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you! I hope I can live up to that.

chasil 2y ago

I commiserate, it can be unforgiving, and the use of C is admittedly out of vogue.

gavinhoward 2y ago
Oh, I love C. [1] But yes, unforgiving. And a lot of magic, with special variables, macros, and functions that you must know. And unclear scoping. [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/why-i-use-c-when-i-believe-in-memory-safety/ https://gavinhoward.com/2023/02/why-i-use-c-when-i-believe-i...
- kelnos 2y ago
  OT, but: I remember reading that post of yours a year or so ago! It was so bizarre to me, but also really fun. I feel like you are among what is probably a very small group of people who could write something security-sensitive in C, and I would feel comfortable using it. (I am still less than thrilled that I have to rely on OpenSSL, regardless of the process improvements its developer team has made in more recent years.) I still (unfortunately, IMO) write a lot of C. Back in 2004 I thought it was great fun. But now that I've worked in safer, batteries-included languages, I find C to be a huge drag. I'm so much more productive in Rust or even Java. I could never ever ever ever approach the level of rigor you bring to your C code; I just don't find doing all that stuff to be fun or interesting... to the contrary, it feels like a huge drag: if I were "required" to do all that, I just wouldn't write any code at all in C in the first place, knowing that having to do all the testing and fuzzing and static analysis stuff would burn me out. Anyhow, I hope I don't sound like I'm being critical... quite the opposite. I just think we live in a magnificent world where people's brains can work so so so differently when it comes to the same topic.
  - gavinhoward 2y ago
    No offense taken; I know my brain is different. :) > I feel like you are among what is probably a very small group of people who could write something security-sensitive in C, and I would feel comfortable using it. This is probably the most complimentary thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you! I hope I can live up to that.