Why Learn to Program in C?

I find it odd that anyone would question the value of learning C. I find the negative attitudes toward C to be very odd in general. Now, it is clear to me that I am in the minority, but I can't understand why people would be doing serious work in an interpreted language. I detest garbage collection as I have no control over it. I am sure I could write statements like this all day.

Don't get me wrong: I use perl when it makes sense; I use Java when it makes sense. I quite like playing with new languages and seeing what I can do with them. There are many languages that are safer than C or easier to do particular tasks than with C, but I am very rarely happy with the trade offs. When I am trying to do serious work that is meant to stand the test of time, I'll use C.

C is great. I wouldn't recommend starting programming in C, though. At least not with the standard exercises you see. Get user input, read a file, do this do that with it.

Why? the C standard library is full of gotchas and tricks and goofy shit that makes it unsuitable for new programmers. The comp.lang.c FAQ should be standard reading material for anyone taking a C class. Look at all the posts on StackOverflow about the stdio functions 'not working right' and asking how to do menial things like collect keypresses.

C works well as a first language if you teach it like assembly (use of which as a teaching language is another debate): flip some bits and do some loops. But not for collecting user input/output. Half of your students are going to get stuck trying to collect a list of names from the user, before they even get a chance to get stuck trying to sort the list.

> C has immense cultural value. Lots and lots of extant source code, important source code

Yes, exactly! In my opinion, C for a programmer or computer scientist is like Latin for a medieval scholar. You don’t need to speak it fluently, but it’s good to know enough to read other people’s works and understand how concepts are expressed.

In practical terms, I think that almost any programmer can benefit from reading K&R and doing the exercises in it, even if they never go on to write “real” programs in C. The book is very short and readable, and finishing it is a much tinier task than learning the standard libraries and toolchain options and best practices and all the other stuff you need to be productive writing production-quality code.

I think it doesn't really matter what people learn as a first programming language. Eventually, any serious programmer will become familiar with the most common languages and paradigms, C being one of them. It may not be the best choice for beginners, but it's valid nonetheless. People can have fun learning algorithms without worrying too much about pointers and complicated type declarations. It's not like it's going to mess up their brain and prevent them from learning higher-level languages later on.

Overcoming goofy shit and gotchas is part of any programming system.