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> 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 mean

> 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 2y 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 2y ago
  We’re talking about C/C++, not algorithms or data structures.
  - jpc0 2y 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 2y 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      Right, that's why a 20 year old book on algorithms and data structures is not necessarily outdated, but a 20 year old book on C/C++ most certainly is.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 2y 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 2y ago
        > The only way you could think this is if you have zero knowledge of these languages. Exactly. For context see my original comment above about C/C++ books being paid.
        ryao 2y ago
        Are you unable to use search engines: https://www.learn-c.org/ https://www.learn-c.org/ There are so many free learning resources for these languages that it is ridiculous to say that you need books to learn them. The books are great, but non-essential. If you insist on reading books, there is an ancient invention called a library that you can use for free.
        koakuma-chan 2y ago
        What C standard does that website describe?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        ryao 2y ago
        At a glance, the code is compatible with all C standards ever published. You are too fixated on learning the latest. The latest is largely just a superset of the earlier standards and the new features are often obscure things you are unlikely to need or want to use. The main exceptions that you actually would want to use would be the ability to declare variables anywhere in a block and use single line // comments from C++ in C99. Most C programmers do not even know about most of the things added in newer C standards beyond those and perhaps a handful of others.
ryao 2y ago
Being decades old does not make it out of date. Until a few years ago, the Linux kernel was written using C89. While it has switched to C11, the changes are fairly small such that a book on C89 is still useful. Many projects still write code against older C versions, and the C compiler supports specifying older C versions. This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version.
- koakuma-chan 2y ago
  > This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version. Do you have any specific evidence? Rust ecosystem is known for libraries that sit on crates.io for years with no updates but they are still perfectly usable (backward-compatible) and popular. Projects usually specify their MSRV (minimum supported Rust version) in the README.
  - ryao 2y ago
    https://endoflife.date/rust https://endoflife.date/rust
    - koakuma-chan 2y ago
      Are you asking for LTS releases? https://ferrocene.dev/en/ https://ferrocene.dev/en/
      - ryao 2y ago
        I was not asking for that. I was answering your question. You asked for evidence of rust releases being abandonware. I gave it to you. Someone else trying to ameliorate Rust releases does not change this reality.
        koakuma-chan 2y ago
nickpsecurity 2y ago
A long time ago, Victor Yodaiken told me the best way to learn C was the old, K&R book. The explanations, examples, and even pitfalls were all explained well. My code worked without much fuss. That's probably because C hasn't changed much. I ended up switching to Python for job requirements after getting through half the book. If I re-learn C, I'll go back to it. If it were C++, that would be a totally, different story since they kept piling features on over time.

cynical_german 2y 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 2y ago
We’re talking about C/C++, not algorithms or data structures.
- jpc0 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
        > The only way you could think this is if you have zero knowledge of these languages. Exactly. For context see my original comment above about C/C++ books being paid.
        ryao 2y ago
        Are you unable to use search engines: https://www.learn-c.org/ https://www.learn-c.org/ There are so many free learning resources for these languages that it is ridiculous to say that you need books to learn them. The books are great, but non-essential. If you insist on reading books, there is an ancient invention called a library that you can use for free.
        koakuma-chan 2y ago
        What C standard does that website describe?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        ryao 2y ago
        At a glance, the code is compatible with all C standards ever published. You are too fixated on learning the latest. The latest is largely just a superset of the earlier standards and the new features are often obscure things you are unlikely to need or want to use. The main exceptions that you actually would want to use would be the ability to declare variables anywhere in a block and use single line // comments from C++ in C99. Most C programmers do not even know about most of the things added in newer C standards beyond those and perhaps a handful of others.

ryao 2y ago

Being decades old does not make it out of date. Until a few years ago, the Linux kernel was written using C89. While it has switched to C11, the changes are fairly small such that a book on C89 is still useful. Many projects still write code against older C versions, and the C compiler supports specifying older C versions. This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version.

koakuma-chan 2y ago
> This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version. Do you have any specific evidence? Rust ecosystem is known for libraries that sit on crates.io for years with no updates but they are still perfectly usable (backward-compatible) and popular. Projects usually specify their MSRV (minimum supported Rust version) in the README.
- ryao 2y ago
  https://endoflife.date/rust https://endoflife.date/rust
  - koakuma-chan 2y ago
    Are you asking for LTS releases? https://ferrocene.dev/en/ https://ferrocene.dev/en/
    - ryao 2y ago
      I was not asking for that. I was answering your question. You asked for evidence of rust releases being abandonware. I gave it to you. Someone else trying to ameliorate Rust releases does not change this reality.
      - koakuma-chan 2y ago

nickpsecurity 2y ago

A long time ago, Victor Yodaiken told me the best way to learn C was the old, K&R book. The explanations, examples, and even pitfalls were all explained well. My code worked without much fuss. That's probably because C hasn't changed much. I ended up switching to Python for job requirements after getting through half the book. If I re-learn C, I'll go back to it. If it were C++, that would be a totally, different story since they kept piling features on over time.