The Development of the C Language (1993)
bell-labs.com
The Development of the C Language (1993)
1–10 of 536 posts
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#2i had read this before, and it has been posted here multiple times, but somehow i had missed:
> Thus the core C language escaped nearly unscathed from the standardization process, and the Standard emerged more as a better, careful codification than a new invention.
which made me grin.
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#3This might miss a (1993) tag.
Interestingly, some might print the same title about JavaScript.
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#4This might miss a (1993) tag. Interestingly, some might print the same title about JavaScript.
So the conclusion is, Rust will never be a success because everyone loves it ?
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#5I wonder how much the pile of undefined behavior contributed to C's success. I can imagine that vendors picked C over alternatives due to C giving them more freedom with their implementation.
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#6People who still write C, honest question: Why?
C is full of quirks. From cryptic "undefined behaviors" to a type system that isn't really a type system (more like "size hints for the compiler"), the language doesn't feel easy to use/debug. Add to this CPP macros, a universally recognized bad idea, a clunky import system, and lack of a single reference implementation of the compiler/libC, and you have a language that is harsh to defend.
Also, documentation is all over the place. If a function isn't described in `man`, I have no idea where else to actually look for it.
I used to think "C presents the most honest representation of the low-level mechanisms of the computer", but... even this is shaky. I've been programming for almost 15 years now, and I don't think I've ever seen a computer where memory is actually a continuous array of bits sorted by memory address. The C representation of memory (and all the pointer arithmetic) is not a real representation of your hardware, and this too is an abstraction.
So, setting aside the need to maintain 30+ year old code, what would be modern reasons to start a new project in C?
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#7Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#8I wonder how much the pile of undefined behavior contributed to C's success. I can imagine that vendors picked C over alternatives due to C giving them more freedom with their implementation.
Isn't the other way around? Vendors already had picked C and they wanted to claim compliance to the then brand new C89 standard so anything they didn't want to give up on was deemed "implementation-defined behavior" and anything they couldn't give up on[0] was deemed "undefined behavior".
[0] because their machines worked very differently from the others' machines
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#9This might miss a (1993) tag. Interestingly, some might print the same title about JavaScript.
So the conclusion is, Rust will never be a success because everyone loves it ?
When I get to achieve my target 3 times faster using Go why should I waste my time following “functional ways” just to use to write project A
Re: The Development of the C Language (1993)
#10Original title: The Development of the C Language
Editorialized title: “C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success” – Dennis Ritchie
HN Guideline:
> [...] please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.