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Ode to C (programming.dev)

Personally, I have nothing against the emergence of new programming languages. This is cool:

  • the industry does not stand still
  • competition allows existing languages to develop and borrow features from new ones
  • developers have the opportunity to learn new things while avoiding burnout
  • there is a choice for beginners
  • there is a choice for specific tasks

But why do most people dislike the C language so much? But it remains the fastest among high-level languages. Who benefits from C being suppressed and attempts being made to replace him? I think there is only one answer - companies. Not developers. Developers are already reproducing the opinion imposed on them by the market. Under the influence of hype and the opinions of others, they form the idea that C is a useless language. And most importantly, oh my god, he's unsafe. Memory usage. But you as a programmer are (and must be) responsible for the code you write, not a language. And the one way not to do bugs - not doing them.

Personally, I also like the Nim language. Its performance is comparable to C, but its syntax and elegance are more modern.

And in general, I’m not against new languages, it’s a matter of taste. But when you learn a language, write in it for a while, and then realize that you are burning out 10 times faster than before, you realize the cost of memory safety.

This is that cost:

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[-] mlg@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I'm convinced the people who complain about C are actually C++ devs who never learned standalone C so they just think all the insanity in C++ must be 100x worse in C.

Either that or java devs who think pointers are nuclear bombs lol.

[-] hunger@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago

Oh, come on... all C++ devs know C well enough. Nobody assumes C is bad because it is more insane than C++.

C is just awfully repetitive as you have to spell out all the cleanup code all time -- and you are likely to have a security issue when you forget it just once.

this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
23 points (81.1% liked)

C Programming Language

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C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.
... When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd.
... The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.

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