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I stopped everything and started writing C again

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Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#221

Post by davedx »

ohgr wrote: post #188
kelnos wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Rust is harder to learn, but once you grok it, I don't think it's harder to use, or at least to use correctly. It's hard to write correct C because the standard tooling doesn't give you much help beyond `-Wall`. When I say Rust is harder to use (even after learning it decently well), what I mean is that it's still easier to write a pile of C code and get it to compile than it is to write a pile of Rust code…

I’d add that the Rust code and C code will probably have the same number of bugs. The C code will likely have some vulnerabilities on top of those. Rust doesn’t magically make the vast majority of bugs go away. Most of bugs are entirely portable!

This is objectively nonsense

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#222

Post by jkhdigital »

tromp wrote: post #55

Here's what kc3 code looks like (taken from [1]): def route = fn (request) { if (request.method == GET || request.method == HEAD) do locale = "en" slash = if Str.ends_with?(request.url, "/") do "" else "/" end path_html = "./pages#{request.url}#{slash}index.#{locale}.html" if File.exists?(path_html) do show_html(path_html, request.url) else path_md = "./pages#{request.url}#{slash}index.#{locale}.md" if File.exists?(p…

The author mentions being deeply inspired and influenced by Jose Valim; I guess this means (approximately) that KC3 is to C as Elixir is to Erlang?

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#223

Post by kelnos »

ohgr wrote: post #188
kelnos wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Rust is harder to learn, but once you grok it, I don't think it's harder to use, or at least to use correctly. It's hard to write correct C because the standard tooling doesn't give you much help beyond `-Wall`. When I say Rust is harder to use (even after learning it decently well), what I mean is that it's still easier to write a pile of C code and get it to compile than it is to write a pile of Rust code…

I’d add that the Rust code and C code will probably have the same number of bugs. The C code will likely have some vulnerabilities on top of those. Rust doesn’t magically make the vast majority of bugs go away. Most of bugs are entirely portable!

Vulnerabilities are bugs, so the C code will have more bugs than the Rust program.

You might say that the C and Rust code will have the same number of logic errors, but I'm not convinced that's the case either. Sure, if you just directly translate the C to Rust, maybe. But if you rewrite the C program in Rust while making good use of Rust's type system, it's likely you'll have fewer logic errors in the Rust code as well.

Rust has other nice features that will help avoid bugs you might write in a C program, like most Result-returning functions in the stdlib being marked #[must_use], or match expressions being exhaustive, to name a couple things.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#224

Post by nyrikki »

codedokode wrote: post #212
nyrikki wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, where linked lists, graphs and other structures are a common need, zig gives me slices and deferred frees. Rust is double expensive in this case. You have to memorize the borrow checker and be responsible for all the potential undefined behavior with unsafe code. But I am not a super human systems programmer. Perhaps if I was the calculus would change. But personally when I have to drop down below a GC langua…

> You have to memorize the borrow checker Correct me if I am wrong, but Rust at least has a borrow checker while in C (and Zig) one has to do the borrow checking in their head. If you read a documentation for C libraries, some of them mention things like "caller must free this memory" and others don't specify anything and you have to go to the source code to find out who is responsible for freeing the memory.

Rust gives two reasons for the borrow checker, iterator invalidation and use after free.

As I have always bought into Dennis Ritchie's loop programming concepts, iterator invalidating hasn't been a problem.

Zig has defer which makes it trivial to place next to allocation, and it is released when it goes out of scope.

As building a linked list, dealing with bit fields, ARM peripherals, etc...; all require disabling the Rust borrow checker rules, you don't benefit at all from them in those cases IMHO.

It is horses for courses, and the Rust project admits they chose a very specific horse.

C is what it is, and people who did assembly on a PDP7 probably know where a lot of that is from.

I personally prefer zig to c... but I will use c when it makes the task easier.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#225

Post by kelnos »

ohgr wrote: post #209
codedokode wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust allows to provide more information about types (generic types, pointer usage) and checks it, while in C you have to rely on doc comments and checking the code manually. Or am I wrong and C allows to specify pointer nullability, pointer ownership and array bounds?

None of those things feature in any problem I deal with on a daily basis, whatever language I use. So for example today I dealt with a synchronization issue. This turned out to not be a code bug but a human misunderstanding of a protocol specification saga, which was not possible to code into a type system of any sort. The day before was a constraint network specification error. In both cases the code was entirely ir…

> None of those things feature in any problem I deal with on a daily basis, whatever language I use.'

I run into those things nearly daily, so... ok then.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#226

Post by kelnos »

crabbone wrote: post #204
necubi wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your first point—the compiler is pointing out exactly what the problem is (the argument has the incorrect type) and then telling you what you likely wanted to do (borrow the String). What would you see as a more helpful error message in this case?

The compiler says "expected X, but found Y". I don't know how to interpret this: is the type of the thing underlined with "^^^" X or Y? "Expected" and "found" are just like "up" and "down" in space: they are meaningless if you don't know what the compiler expects (and why should it?). What it needs to say is something along the lines of "a function f is defined with type X, but is given an argument of type Y": maybe…

I dunno, I feel like if you've used a compiler regularly, "expected X, but found Y" is a pretty common idiom/shorthand that people understand. Your wordier version of that feels unnecessary to me.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#227

Post by kelnos »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #182
samiv wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with C is that doesn't even have enough features to help you build the features and abstractions you need and want. For example with C++ the language offers enough functionality that you can create abstractions at any level, from low level bit manipulation to high level features such as automatic memory management, high level data objects etc. With C you can never escape the low level details. Cur…

Just FYI. Back in 1994/95, I wrote an API, in C, that was a communication interface. We had to use C, because it was the only language that had binary/link compatibility between compilers (the ones that we used). We designed what I call "false object pattern." It used a C struct to simulate a dynamic object, complete with function pointers (that could be replaced, in implementation), and that gave us a "sorta/kinda"…

Sure, that's a pretty common pattern in use in C to this day. It's a useful pattern, but it's still all manual. Forget to fill in a function pointer in a struct? Crash. At least with C++ it will fail to compile if you don't implement a method that you have to implement.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#228

Post by kelnos »

eikenberry wrote: post #157
kelnos wrote: post #127

I'm kinda in the opposite camp. After doing a bunch of VB in my tweens and teens, I learned Java, C, and C++ in college, settling on mostly C for personal and professional projects. I became a core developer of Xfce and worked on that for 5 years. Then I moved into backend development, where I was doing all Java, Scala, and Python. It was... dare I say... easy! Sure, these kinds of languages bring with them other pro…

Have you looked at Zig? It is often termed a modern C where Rust is the modern C++. Seems like a good fit.

I have, and I do find Zig impressive, but it doesn't go far enough for me. I don't want a "better C", I want a better systems language that can also scale up for other uses.

I like strong, featureful type systems and functional programming; Zig doesn't really fit the bill for me there. Rust is missing a few things I want (like higher-kinded types; GATs don't go far enough for me), but it's incredible how they've managed to build so many zero- and low-cost abstractions and make Rust feel like quite a high-level language sometimes.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#229

Post by kelnos »

Sysreq2 wrote: post #165
kelnos wrote: post #127

I'm kinda in the opposite camp. After doing a bunch of VB in my tweens and teens, I learned Java, C, and C++ in college, settling on mostly C for personal and professional projects. I became a core developer of Xfce and worked on that for 5 years. Then I moved into backend development, where I was doing all Java, Scala, and Python. It was... dare I say... easy! Sure, these kinds of languages bring with them other pro…

I will say the more recent additions to C++ at least have solved many of my long standing issues with that C-variant. Most of it was stuff that was long overdue. Like string formatting or a thread safe println. But even some of the stuff I didn’t think I would love has been amazing. Modules. Modules bro. Game changer. I’m all in. Honestly C++ is my go to for anything that isn’t just throw away again. Python will alwa…

I lost interest in keeping up with C++'s advances more than a decade ago.

The problem is that I want a language where things are safe by default. Many of the newer stuff added in C++ makes things safe, perhaps even to the level of Rust's guarantees -- but that's only if you use only these new things, and never -- even by accident -- use any of the older patterns.

I'd rather just learn a language without all that baggage.

Re: I stopped everything and started writing C again

#230

Post by tartoran »

crabbone wrote: post #204
necubi wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your first point—the compiler is pointing out exactly what the problem is (the argument has the incorrect type) and then telling you what you likely wanted to do (borrow the String). What would you see as a more helpful error message in this case?

The compiler says "expected X, but found Y". I don't know how to interpret this: is the type of the thing underlined with "^^^" X or Y? "Expected" and "found" are just like "up" and "down" in space: they are meaningless if you don't know what the compiler expects (and why should it?). What it needs to say is something along the lines of "a function f is defined with type X, but is given an argument of type Y": maybe…

C is a low level language and deals with things close to the metal. It's probably not fun to write a large business app in barebones C but you having control over low level things makes other things possible and very fast too. Depending on the type of problem you have use the appropriate and favorite language.
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