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Is C the best possible choice for Git? For Subsurface? For the embroidery template converter thingie he wrote for his wife? Linus used C for all of those, but

by dmit 13y ago

Is C the best possible choice for Git? For Subsurface? For the embroidery template converter thingie he wrote for his wife? Linus used C for all of those, but was it because C was technically the best choice in each case, or because it was good enough to get the job done and because it's the language he's most comfortable with?

FreeFull 13y ago
Linus is a bit obsessed with making the software he uses fast. I don't think it'd be as easy to make git as fast as it is if it was written in something other than C. Subsurface though probably could be written in a different language and not feel any slower.
coldtea 13y ago
>Is C the best possible choice for Git? For Subsurface? For the embroidery template converter thingie he wrote for his wife? Sure -- since he also wrote those himself, so a good requisite would be "language Linus can quickly write shit in". And for git there are other reasons too: portable, fast, lots of people can hack in C, etc.
jlgreco 13y ago
> "Is C the best possible choice for Git?" Well, I mean... SLOC Directory SLOC-by-Language (Sorted) 100691 top_dir ansic=80140,perl=10458,sh=7523,python=2570 98482 t sh=97926,perl=546,ansic=10 38293 builtin ansic=38293 22256 contrib sh=9888,perl=5838,python=3130,lisp=1786,ansic=1449, php=120,csh=45 18056 compat ansic=18004,perl=52 13754 git-gui tcl=10299,sh=3455 10859 gitk-git tcl=10745,sh=114 6225 gitweb perl=6225 5400 perl perl=5400 2350 xdiff ansic=2350 1288 vcs-svn ansic=1288 689 git_remote_helpers python=689 292 Documentation perl=155,sh=137 266 templates sh=266 203 block-sha1 ansic=203 173 ppc asm=98,ansic=75 0 mergetools (none) 0 po (none) Totals grouped by language (dominant language first): ansic: 141812 (44.42%) sh: 119309 (37.37%) perl: 28674 (8.98%) tcl: 21044 (6.59%) python: 6389 (2.00%) lisp: 1786 (0.56%) php: 120 (0.04%) asm: 98 (0.03%) csh: 45 (0.01%) Git's design is such that different parts of it can be written in different languages with no hassle. The majority is in C, but typically new features are prototyped out in other languages first until it becomes clear that speed will be important (and it generally will, since a major usage pattern of git is scripts and other commands calling your command many times in a row. Does git-add need to be fast if you're just doing 'git add ...'? Perhaps not. Does it need to be fast if my fancy-smancy script is wailing on it several thousand times? Yeah; particularly it needs to have a fast startup time. Does git-difftool need to be in C? Probably not, which is probably why it is still Perl instead. Test-cases? No reason in the world for them to be in C, so they're in sh.)

by dmit 13y ago

FreeFull 13y ago

Linus is a bit obsessed with making the software he uses fast. I don't think it'd be as easy to make git as fast as it is if it was written in something other than C. Subsurface though probably could be written in a different language and not feel any slower.

coldtea 13y ago

>Is C the best possible choice for Git? For Subsurface? For the embroidery template converter thingie he wrote for his wife? Sure -- since he also wrote those himself, so a good requisite would be "language Linus can quickly write shit in". And for git there are other reasons too: portable, fast, lots of people can hack in C, etc.

jlgreco 13y ago

> "Is C the best possible choice for Git?" Well, I mean... SLOC Directory SLOC-by-Language (Sorted) 100691 top_dir ansic=80140,perl=10458,sh=7523,python=2570 98482 t sh=97926,perl=546,ansic=10 38293 builtin ansic=38293 22256 contrib sh=9888,perl=5838,python=3130,lisp=1786,ansic=1449, php=120,csh=45 18056 compat ansic=18004,perl=52 13754 git-gui tcl=10299,sh=3455 10859 gitk-git tcl=10745,sh=114 6225 gitweb perl=6225 5400 perl perl=5400 2350 xdiff ansic=2350 1288 vcs-svn ansic=1288 689 git_remote_helpers python=689 292 Documentation perl=155,sh=137 266 templates sh=266 203 block-sha1 ansic=203 173 ppc asm=98,ansic=75 0 mergetools (none) 0 po (none) Totals grouped by language (dominant language first): ansic: 141812 (44.42%) sh: 119309 (37.37%) perl: 28674 (8.98%) tcl: 21044 (6.59%) python: 6389 (2.00%) lisp: 1786 (0.56%) php: 120 (0.04%) asm: 98 (0.03%) csh: 45 (0.01%) Git's design is such that different parts of it can be written in different languages with no hassle. The majority is in C, but typically new features are prototyped out in other languages first until it becomes clear that speed will be important (and it generally will, since a major usage pattern of git is scripts and other commands calling your command many times in a row. Does git-add need to be fast if you're just doing 'git add ...'? Perhaps not. Does it need to be fast if my fancy-smancy script is wailing on it several thousand times? Yeah; particularly it needs to have a fast startup time. Does git-difftool need to be in C? Probably not, which is probably why it is still Perl instead. Test-cases? No reason in the world for them to be in C, so they're in sh.)