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I tried to describe that world. I think you've done a very good job of explaining that world. Perhaps I was originally misdirecting my frustration at C, and it

I tried to describe that world. I think you've done a very good job of explaining that world. Perhaps I was originally misdirecting my frustration at C, and it should have been at the fact that I am trying to solve such a computationally intensive problem that I cannot afford to incur the performance penalty caused by the abstractions in languages like Python. This really helped me understand the use of C, thank you very much. I wonder if one day soon computers will be powerful enough, and compilers optimized enough, so that even our biggest scientific simulations can be written in highly abstract programing languages. I have a feeling that we will still be wanting to harness every little bit of computational power we can for a long time to come, and low level languages like C and Rust will maintain their necessity. Thanks again.

gregjor 2y ago
Glad to have a useful exchange on HN. The difference between C and Python comes down to layers of abstraction and conveniences for the programmer. Those abstractions and conveniences come at a cost measured in performance, another way to say demands on the hardware. Computer hardware along with compiler and related technology has come a long way since C got introduced, but of course C benefits from those improvements so it remains relatively fast compared to more abstracted languages such as Python. Writing C also demands more low-level knowledge from the programmer than writing in Python or Javascript, which limits C's accessibility to programmers who just have a job to do. Right now many people expect or hope that AI in the form of LLMs will let us generate efficient code from human-language descriptions, eliminating the need for expert C programmers to write and optimize code "by hand." I don't share those expectations, I see mostly hype and a lot of work trying to get AI to mimic a human programmer (e.g. writing Python code rather than giving optimal solutions to problems). My decades in the software business have perhaps made me jaded and cynical -- I have heard grandiose claims about revolutions in programming before. But you never know, maybe someone (or some AI) will figure out how to bridge the gap between requirements imperfectly expressed by people and what digital computers can efficiently do.

gregjor 2y ago

Glad to have a useful exchange on HN. The difference between C and Python comes down to layers of abstraction and conveniences for the programmer. Those abstractions and conveniences come at a cost measured in performance, another way to say demands on the hardware. Computer hardware along with compiler and related technology has come a long way since C got introduced, but of course C benefits from those improvements so it remains relatively fast compared to more abstracted languages such as Python. Writing C also demands more low-level knowledge from the programmer than writing in Python or Javascript, which limits C's accessibility to programmers who just have a job to do. Right now many people expect or hope that AI in the form of LLMs will let us generate efficient code from human-language descriptions, eliminating the need for expert C programmers to write and optimize code "by hand." I don't share those expectations, I see mostly hype and a lot of work trying to get AI to mimic a human programmer (e.g. writing Python code rather than giving optimal solutions to problems). My decades in the software business have perhaps made me jaded and cynical -- I have heard grandiose claims about revolutions in programming before. But you never know, maybe someone (or some AI) will figure out how to bridge the gap between requirements imperfectly expressed by people and what digital computers can efficiently do.