4 ms·

We're reaping the benefits of C's resistance to feature bloat. C powers the daemons and operating systems of the world. When you're working in the field, C's

by anon3_ 11y ago

We're reaping the benefits of C's resistance to feature bloat. C powers the daemons and operating systems of the world. When you're working in the field, C's transparency and absence of esoteric programming voodoo is a feature, not deficit. Interest posting made today similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9827051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9827051

the_why_of_y 11y ago
How does "undefined behavior" not qualify as "esoteric programming voodoo"?
- xamuel 11y ago
  UB is not something that a competent programmer does intentionally. You shouldn't ever run into a situation where you'd tell your fellow programmer, "Hey, on line 300 here, you're doing UB, stop it", only for them to say "No, I'll do UB if I please". With C++ on the other hand, you could very well run into situations where you plead with your fellow programmer, e.g., "please stop overloading operators in this opaque and unmaintainable way", and then they tell you, "so what, that's our in-house style and it has official language blessing".
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Sadly I am yet to work in an enterprise environment that fully understands the meaning of "competent programmer" in their hiring process, specially for offshore resources.
  - the_why_of_y 11y ago
    C++ has roughly the same undefined behaviors as C, plus a bunch of additional ones for the C++ specific features. Also, you'd be surprised how many stubborn C programmers apparently think that mutable global variables are an excellent and convenient time-saver. (Not that C++ programmers do inherently any better here, cf. Singleton)
    - cwzwarich 11y ago
      The C spec also has a handy appendix listing all undefined behavior, which IIRC the C++ spec does not have.
  - epsylon 11y ago
    Yet even the most competent programmers will have UBs crawl into their code where they do not expect them. Sure, C has less pitfalls than C++ ; but it has its own as well. (see previous discussion on HN "What is C", John Regehr's blog, ...)
wcummings 11y ago
In the field?

by anon3_ 11y ago

the_why_of_y 11y ago

How does "undefined behavior" not qualify as "esoteric programming voodoo"?

xamuel 11y ago
UB is not something that a competent programmer does intentionally. You shouldn't ever run into a situation where you'd tell your fellow programmer, "Hey, on line 300 here, you're doing UB, stop it", only for them to say "No, I'll do UB if I please". With C++ on the other hand, you could very well run into situations where you plead with your fellow programmer, e.g., "please stop overloading operators in this opaque and unmaintainable way", and then they tell you, "so what, that's our in-house style and it has official language blessing".
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Sadly I am yet to work in an enterprise environment that fully understands the meaning of "competent programmer" in their hiring process, specially for offshore resources.
- the_why_of_y 11y ago
  C++ has roughly the same undefined behaviors as C, plus a bunch of additional ones for the C++ specific features. Also, you'd be surprised how many stubborn C programmers apparently think that mutable global variables are an excellent and convenient time-saver. (Not that C++ programmers do inherently any better here, cf. Singleton)
  - cwzwarich 11y ago
    The C spec also has a handy appendix listing all undefined behavior, which IIRC the C++ spec does not have.
- epsylon 11y ago
  Yet even the most competent programmers will have UBs crawl into their code where they do not expect them. Sure, C has less pitfalls than C++ ; but it has its own as well. (see previous discussion on HN "What is C", John Regehr's blog, ...)

wcummings 11y ago

In the field?