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However, for professional development, you should probably learn it anyways before you jump into other lower level languages.
C is the Latin of programming languages, as it's the common root of a flurry of languages, and you see it's influence in a lot of places. Even though it's not exactly "how a computer works," understanding its purpose and problems puts other languages into context.
In college I used to tutor students in computer science. Mid-way through my college career my school switched the curriculum to teach Python instead of Java. I found that the students who took Python lacked what I considered a basic appreciation for and understanding of how the language actually ‘does’ something. For instance, when you only need to write two curly braces to create a “dictionary” (of course behind the…
There are certainly some advantages to be gained from greater mechanical sympathy and an appreciation of static types. However, in the modern day, I wouldn't suggest a Python programmer learn C to achieve either of these things. For a Python programmer who just wants to learn about static type systems, learn Typescript. For a Python programmer who wants to learn about static type systems and mess around with pointers…
I still do think there is value in learning C, though. Of extant languages (disregarding assembly), I believe C is the ancestor of nearly every programming language today. From a historical perspective, understanding C and it’s shortcomings allow you to understand the motivations that created even higher level languages. Similarly, it would be hard to understand a lot of the decisions the C language makes without an understanding of assembly, why assembly instructions are as they are without understanding computer architecture, etc.
There is also an argument to be made that C is still extremely ubiquitous. I like Rust as a language very much and think there is a great deal to learn from it, but it is still so immature (though it has come a long way) that I would feel disingenuous suggesting it to someone who only knows python as a way to gain a better understanding of programming languages. I imagine it would be akin to encouraging a Buddhist to practice Lutheranism shortly after Luther’s schism rather than learn about Catholicism first - someone who does so would be blindly ignoring all the history and motives that drove that change in the first place.
Yes. Learn C. Not to understand python, but to become a better programmer and gain a better understanding of computers. We desperately need more people learning the 'hard' languages. Python is fun, but libssl, libcurl, the Linux kernel, and all the other 'important' things need more developers.
Learning more languages or different languages will let you see the similarities and differences but also the way they all end up running on the same system, calling into the same libraries and operating system.
That said, languages are generally just 'ways to write', often aligned with 'ways to think' but they aren't themselves the algorithmic and data structural concepts which are very useful to at least know and have played around with a bit. It doesn't mean you actually end up re-implementing every doubly linked-list in all your code, but knowing the concept of hashing and binary trees, seeing how they can be helpful in hashmaps, and how turning arrays into trees and back again gets you so much extra understanding that when you do finally end up writing some production code and needing to make it work faster, use bigger datasets or reduce cost by optimising resource usage you'll at least know where to look and what to search for in your refactoring spree.
Learning C and perhaps C++ is great for writing system libraries that need to run close to the metal, but I wouldn't really want programmers to still use those languages in general software development. If Go and Rust gets you there 90% of the way and you can glue things together with Python, Lua and other stuff you'll be able to make reasonable software for general use which is what most development ends up being anyway. Java (and C#) are still there of course, and you'll still want to at least play around with those just to get a sense of the (software world) around you. The time that you just boxed yourself in with 1 OS, 1 IDE and 1 Language with 1 Framework is passing (or has mostly passed) in commercial development. Throwing raw source code over the fence for 'ops' to do the rest is dying off.
Python is so far removed from C that I struggle to think of anything about C that would help you to better write or understand Python. If anything, it might make your Python worse if you try to import C idioms to Python. If what you really want is to write or read C, then of course you should learn C.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are certainly some advantages to be gained from greater mechanical sympathy and an appreciation of static types. However, in the modern day, I wouldn't suggest a Python programmer learn C to achieve either of these things. For a Python programmer who just wants to learn about static type systems, learn Typescript. For a Python programmer who wants to learn about static type systems and mess around with pointers…
Those are all vastly more complicated than C. And on top of that you have to learn three instead of just one! (Imagine trying to learn Rust without experience with C. Oh man.)
C's simplicity is an illusion. The vast quantity of footguns and edge cases make writing correct C extremely complicated.
> And on top of that you have to learn three instead of just one!
You don't need to learn all of those, select one based on what your goals are. And it's not like gaining a surface-level understanding of any of these programming languages would take more than a week to a month anyway.
> Imagine trying to learn Rust without experience with C. Oh man.
It's quite the opposite. Rust is a dream to learn compared to C. The Rust compiler is like having a personal tutor at your beck and call to teach you systems programming best-practices. Without exaggeration, these days I would not suggest someone start learning C until they have learned Rust.
besides that, knowing other languages will help you become a better programmer in general. usual classic advice is learn c, lisp, and ml
however you still need to know good programming practices, data structures, and algorithms. with the exception of the first, these are not language specific
In college I used to tutor students in computer science. Mid-way through my college career my school switched the curriculum to teach Python instead of Java. I found that the students who took Python lacked what I considered a basic appreciation for and understanding of how the language actually ‘does’ something. For instance, when you only need to write two curly braces to create a “dictionary” (of course behind the…
Well, that is wrong. Single value accesses are O(1) amortized.
Also, Java is a lower level language but I don’t think simply programming in Java instead teaches you this. Either way, it’s the difference between learning how to write programs and learning computer science.