11 ms·

what a weird take to me... C has DECADES of high quality teaching material in form of books, university courses, plenty of which is freely available with a bit

what a weird take to me... C has DECADES of high quality teaching material in form of books, university courses, plenty of which is freely available with a bit of searching. And, if we discount the fact that "buying" a book is such a big hurdle, even more high quality academic text books and papers to boost; anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high performance computing, teaching of algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, whatever! edit: I even forgot to name operating system design plus game programming ; and of course accompanying libraries, compilers & build systems to cover all of those areas and use cases! edit2: networking, signal processing, automotive, learning about industry protocols and devices of any sort... if you explore computer science using C as your main language you are in the biggest candy store in the world with regards to what it is you want to learn about or do or implement...

koakuma-chan 1y ago
> anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high performance computing, teaching of algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, whatever All that is language-agnostic and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with C.
- cynical_german 1y ago
  Yes, but there is material covering all of those aspects with implementations in C plus libraries plus ecosystem support! From teaching material to real world reference implementations to look at and modify and learn from. And C maps so directly to so many concepts; it's easy to pick up any of those topics with C; and it being so loose makes it even perfect to explore many of those areas to begin with, since very quickly you're not fighting the language to let you do things.
  - koakuma-chan 1y ago
    People may learn from material that uses C for illustration purposes, but that won’t prompt them to write their own C. And don’t even mention ecosystem support in C/C++ where developers are notorious for reimplementing everything on their own because there is no package manager.
    - cynical_german 1y ago
      "rust import csv-parser" "you've installed 89 packages" why is my executable 20 mb, not as performant as a 50 kb C file & doesn't build a year later if I try to build with 89 new versions of those packages obligatory xkcd reference: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dependency_2x.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dependency_2x.png this is what package managers lead to
      - koakuma-chan 1y ago
        You are greatly exaggerating the numbers, and Rust and its ecosystem are known for being stable. Are you saying everyone should write their own csv parser? Also it’s highly likely that an existing CSV library would be optimized, unlike whatever you wrote ad-hoc, so your performance argument doesn’t hold.
        cynical_german 1y ago
        I'm saying package managers automate dependency hell and software is and will be less stable & more bloated as a consequence. And one should know how to write a csv parser and yes, even consider writing one if there are obvious custom restraints and it's an important part of one's project. (and yes, numbers were exaggerated; I picked something trivial like a csv parser pulling in 89 packages for effect; the underlying principle sadly holds true)
        koakuma-chan 1y ago
        Anyone can read a file, split it by newline and split it by comma, but what if values contain newlines or commas? How do you unescape? What about other edge cases? In Rust an existing library would handle all that, and you would also get structure mapping, type coercion, validation etc for free.
        koakuma-chan 1y ago
        The number of dependencies does not indicate how bloated your app is. Package managers actually reduce bloat because your dependencies can have shared dependencies. The reason C programs may seem lightweight is because their number of dependencies is low, but each dependency is actually super fat, and they tend to link dynamically.
koakuma-chan 1y ago
> C has DECADES of high quality teaching material in form of books, university courses, plenty of which is freely available with a bit of searching. Which means all that high quality teaching material is DECADES old. Rust development is centralised and therefore the docs are always up-to-date, unlike C/C++ which is a big big mess.
- cynical_german 1y ago
  Oh my... Are you serious? I'm almost triggered by this. A book about algorithms or data structures from 20 years ago has nothing more to teach? 3D game engine design from 20 years ago has nothing more to teach? No point in looking at the source code of Quake, reading k&r, and Knuth's TAOCP Volume 1 was published in 1968 so it's obviously irrelevant garbage! I could spurr into an essay of what kind of lack of understanding you just portrayed about the world, but I won't.... I won't...
  - koakuma-chan 1y ago
    We’re talking about C/C++, not algorithms or data structures.
    - jpc0 1y ago
      How you implement algorithms and data structures in C++/rust is semantics at best. The imperative shell of those languages are identical semantically right down to the memory model.
      - koakuma-chan 1y ago
        Right, that's why a 20 year old book on algorithms and data structures is not necessarily outdated, but a 20 year old book on C/C++ most certainly is.
        ryao 1y ago
        My copy of The C++ Programming Language for C++98 is still useful today, as is copy of The C Programming Language for C89. The idea that these books are no longer useful is absurd. Modern compilers still support those versions and the new versions are largely extensions of the old (although C++11 changed some standard library definitions). The only way you could think this is if you have zero knowledge of these languages.
koakuma-chan 1y ago
> edit2: networking, signal processing, automotive, learning about industry protocols and devices of any sort... I admit there is many great products that are written in C that aren’t going anywhere any time soon, notably SQLite, but there is no reason to write new software in C or C++.
- cynical_german 1y ago
  I do, and will, the industry does and will, for at least a few more decades. And I even enjoy doing so (with C; C++ is more forced upon me, but that'll be the case for some time to come)
  - koakuma-chan 1y ago
    That’s what I’m saying. By a few decades you and most of those alleged 7 million C/C++ developers will retire and there won’t be anyone to replace them because everyone will be using Rust or Zig or Go.
    - quibono 1y ago
      Very strong statement, one I don't really believe
      - koakuma-chan 1y ago
        That’s what happened to COBOL, right?
        ryao 1y ago
        In COBOL’s case, nobody really wanted to write software in it in the first place. People used assembly or FORTRAN at the time. MBAs wanted a language corporate secretaries could use, so they made COBOL. It failed at its main purpose, but since IBM pushed it for business processing, people were coerced into writing software with it since if they did not use it, they would not have a job. As the industry developed, they stopped finding new people that they could coerce into using it and the old people started retiring/dying. Unlike COBOL adoption, C and C++ adoption occurred because software engineers wanted to use them due to merit.

koakuma-chan 1y ago

> anything from embedded on the weirdest platforms, basic parsing, writing compilers, language design, high performance computing, teaching of algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, whatever All that is language-agnostic and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with C.

cynical_german 1y ago
Yes, but there is material covering all of those aspects with implementations in C plus libraries plus ecosystem support! From teaching material to real world reference implementations to look at and modify and learn from. And C maps so directly to so many concepts; it's easy to pick up any of those topics with C; and it being so loose makes it even perfect to explore many of those areas to begin with, since very quickly you're not fighting the language to let you do things.
- koakuma-chan 1y ago
  People may learn from material that uses C for illustration purposes, but that won’t prompt them to write their own C. And don’t even mention ecosystem support in C/C++ where developers are notorious for reimplementing everything on their own because there is no package manager.
  - cynical_german 1y ago
    "rust import csv-parser" "you've installed 89 packages" why is my executable 20 mb, not as performant as a 50 kb C file & doesn't build a year later if I try to build with 89 new versions of those packages obligatory xkcd reference: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dependency_2x.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dependency_2x.png this is what package managers lead to
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      You are greatly exaggerating the numbers, and Rust and its ecosystem are known for being stable. Are you saying everyone should write their own csv parser? Also it’s highly likely that an existing CSV library would be optimized, unlike whatever you wrote ad-hoc, so your performance argument doesn’t hold.
      - cynical_german 1y ago
        I'm saying package managers automate dependency hell and software is and will be less stable & more bloated as a consequence. And one should know how to write a csv parser and yes, even consider writing one if there are obvious custom restraints and it's an important part of one's project. (and yes, numbers were exaggerated; I picked something trivial like a csv parser pulling in 89 packages for effect; the underlying principle sadly holds true)
        koakuma-chan 1y ago
        Anyone can read a file, split it by newline and split it by comma, but what if values contain newlines or commas? How do you unescape? What about other edge cases? In Rust an existing library would handle all that, and you would also get structure mapping, type coercion, validation etc for free.
        koakuma-chan 1y ago
        The number of dependencies does not indicate how bloated your app is. Package managers actually reduce bloat because your dependencies can have shared dependencies. The reason C programs may seem lightweight is because their number of dependencies is low, but each dependency is actually super fat, and they tend to link dynamically.

koakuma-chan 1y ago

> C has DECADES of high quality teaching material in form of books, university courses, plenty of which is freely available with a bit of searching. Which means all that high quality teaching material is DECADES old. Rust development is centralised and therefore the docs are always up-to-date, unlike C/C++ which is a big big mess.

cynical_german 1y ago
Oh my... Are you serious? I'm almost triggered by this. A book about algorithms or data structures from 20 years ago has nothing more to teach? 3D game engine design from 20 years ago has nothing more to teach? No point in looking at the source code of Quake, reading k&r, and Knuth's TAOCP Volume 1 was published in 1968 so it's obviously irrelevant garbage! I could spurr into an essay of what kind of lack of understanding you just portrayed about the world, but I won't.... I won't...
- koakuma-chan 1y ago
  We’re talking about C/C++, not algorithms or data structures.
  - jpc0 1y ago
    How you implement algorithms and data structures in C++/rust is semantics at best. The imperative shell of those languages are identical semantically right down to the memory model.
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      Right, that's why a 20 year old book on algorithms and data structures is not necessarily outdated, but a 20 year old book on C/C++ most certainly is.
      - ryao 1y ago
        My copy of The C++ Programming Language for C++98 is still useful today, as is copy of The C Programming Language for C89. The idea that these books are no longer useful is absurd. Modern compilers still support those versions and the new versions are largely extensions of the old (although C++11 changed some standard library definitions). The only way you could think this is if you have zero knowledge of these languages.

koakuma-chan 1y ago

> edit2: networking, signal processing, automotive, learning about industry protocols and devices of any sort... I admit there is many great products that are written in C that aren’t going anywhere any time soon, notably SQLite, but there is no reason to write new software in C or C++.

cynical_german 1y ago
I do, and will, the industry does and will, for at least a few more decades. And I even enjoy doing so (with C; C++ is more forced upon me, but that'll be the case for some time to come)
- koakuma-chan 1y ago
  That’s what I’m saying. By a few decades you and most of those alleged 7 million C/C++ developers will retire and there won’t be anyone to replace them because everyone will be using Rust or Zig or Go.
  - quibono 1y ago
    Very strong statement, one I don't really believe
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      That’s what happened to COBOL, right?
      - ryao 1y ago
        In COBOL’s case, nobody really wanted to write software in it in the first place. People used assembly or FORTRAN at the time. MBAs wanted a language corporate secretaries could use, so they made COBOL. It failed at its main purpose, but since IBM pushed it for business processing, people were coerced into writing software with it since if they did not use it, they would not have a job. As the industry developed, they stopped finding new people that they could coerce into using it and the old people started retiring/dying. Unlike COBOL adoption, C and C++ adoption occurred because software engineers wanted to use them due to merit.