Poll: Do you know C? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#71

Post by kylemaxwell » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:11 PM UTC

timclark wrote: post #21

I know C but none of those categories apply to me. Poll design is useful skill to learn! I am not a pollster but by combining different facts into single options you are restricting the information you can gain from your poll or polls. I taught C to engineering students at a university, I know it thoroughly, I haven't written a line of it in 12 years - the only option I can logically choose is the final option.

Basically the same here. I used to live and breathe C... now I don't code nearly as much (and when I do, it's generally shell or Perl scripts).

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#72

Post by HardyLeung » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:11 PM UTC

I learned C, then C++, then C#. I'd say I love them all.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#73

Post by mrcharles » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:13 PM UTC

I answered with the first option, even though I haven't had to use base C in a long long time. But I do know it inside and out. It's a pretty easy language. Some days I miss it.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#74

Post by mnwcsult » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:13 PM UTC

I have extensive knowledge of C. I have been using it since 1987. Our companies youngsters have to get up to speed quickly as our simulations are C/C++ and the datasets are massive and the code must be very fast. Of course they were taught Java in college and find pointers difficult. They quickly come to appreicate the speed difference.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#75

Post by suprafly » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:14 PM UTC

Language #1 for me.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#76

Post by Jun8 » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:14 PM UTC

hvs wrote: post #55

alexk7 wrote: post #47

I'm from the "Modern C++" school. I learned C++ without first learning C. I don't consider myself a C programmer. Of course, I can read and write C code, but I would consider it a burden to code without smart pointers, templates and exceptions. How should I answer this poll?

You don't know C. Coding in C and C++ has diverged significantly enough that they are two completely different languages. That said, answer #3 or #4 makes sense.

Precisely! It always is a red flag when new graduates have "proficient in C/C++ " in their resumes. I've found that these people tend to write code in a combination dialect of C and C++ that I call C+.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#77

Post by erikstarck » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:15 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #38

I've been programming in C for longer than my current manager has been alive. :-)

Reminds me of some C-code I was told to port to Linux (if I remember correctly) some years back (probably in 2003). The code was from 1981 (it said so in the comment header).

Except for the fact the code was almost as old as I am (born in 1976) it turned out that the security check that the code was supposed to perform didn't actually execute.

Yepp, that's right, the code had been running for 30+ years doing nothing.

A friend of mine ended up doing the actual work so I don't know how the story ended but it's a good reminder to never assume _anything_ when you look for bugs.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#78

Post by robryan » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:15 PM UTC

karolist wrote: post #59

kabdib wrote: post #38

I've been programming in C for longer than my current manager has been alive. :-)

Not sure if that's a good thing. I wouldn't say the same for a comment on another site (different things drive different people), but I assume you have some aspirations to make it and be your own boss.

He's manager doesn't get to program all day though :P As long as it's a company in which compensation isn't determined arbitrarily by position in hierarchy it's a great thing.

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#79

Post by colanderman » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:16 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #7

As a first reaction I thought, well, more than 50% of HNers fluent with C, the average age should be pretty high probably. But then I realized that actually the average HN age is probably around 25 (from other pools I saw here), so I guess, there are still a lot of fresh programmers learning C. I really hope so. I love higher level programming languages and spent a lot of time with Tcl, Scheme, FORTH, Joy, Ruby, and…

I'm 25 and consider myself very well-versed in C (though I still have to consult the C99 spec from time to time). When I was learning to program modern computers around the turn of the century, it was the only "serious" language for writing desktop apps (I had recently "graduated" from VB4). I then refined my skills over the course of my electrical & computer engineering degree and a short stint in the EE industry, where it's very much alive as THE language for microcontrollers (and last I heard, a variant called SystemC was (sadly) replacing Verilog and VHDL for use in ASIC/FPGA design).

Re: Poll: Do you know C?

#80

Post by huherto » Thu, Apr 07, 2011, 3:16 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #38

I've been programming in C for longer than my current manager has been alive. :-)

Ok kadbid, I am intrigued. what's the story? Why didn't you make the transition to other languages? Why didn't you make the transition into management? I'm not questioning your decisions, just curious.