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Why Aren't There C Conferences?

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Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#311

Post by chasontherobot »

pathseeker wrote: post #171
davrosthedalek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it is my impression that even in data science, python is more a less a scripting language, and all the libraries which do the heavy lifting computing-wise are written in something else, because speed. Has this changed?

The underlying libraries may be in C, but the vast majority of data scientists never need to alter the C so it's fair to say most data science code is written in python. Python/Numpy/pandas has enabled data scientists to avoid writing C entirely.

about as much FORTRAN as C I believe

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#312

Post by ken »

voltagex_ wrote: post #291
smnplk wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to go further and accept that programming languages are also not tools.

If they're not tools, then what are they? Where do you draw the line?

They're languages, or notations. Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notation_for_differentiation there's different schools of thought on what's easiest to read, while the fundamentals are essentially the same.

Calculus is a tool, but how we write it is just the notation. Similarly, computer programming (or perhaps a subfield like functional programming) is the tool, and a particular language is just the notation for writing it down.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#313

Post by atheriel »

flukus wrote: post #296
visualstudio wrote: post #49

I could see it happening in the future. There's has been a mini resurgence in C from (normally high level language) programmers who are getting sick of web development and are interested in data oriented design. Conference benefits could be: Pushing the C standard. C11 is barely supported. Discussing new standards in a forum other than mailing lists. Did you guys know there is already a C17 standard? Letting old C de…

> Letting old C devs pass on their wisdom to new C devs. C has a lot of pitfalls but also has a lot of neat tricks. On this topic, does anyone know any good blogs along these lines? I'd love to read some practical day to day stuff from people that have been working in C for decades, usually all I see from places like HN are weird compiler incompatibilities and rare exceptions that I never have to deal with. Most of m…

The blog this post belongs to has loads of interesting posts on C.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#314

Post by weberc2 »

earenndil wrote: post #281
klodolph wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that Python has "no pointers" is a bit of an oversimplification, somewhere between "technically true, but misleading" and "actually incorrect", depending on how you define your terms and frame the question. Remember that Java has "no pointers" too, it works basically the same way Python does (except for some minor quibbles about primitive types), except if you go to 4.3.1 of the Java SE 11 spec and look for "p…

interface{} is completely different, in that it doesn't allow polymorphism. In python, I can add = lambda a, b: a+b, and then call add on ints, floats, strs, or some custom type of my own. In go, I can pass an interface{} and check if its type is the same as some other type I know about. But no polymorphism.

You don’t have to check the types, you can say “unpack these variables as into and if they aren’t into, blow up” which is what Python does as well. The major difference is that it’s implicit in Python and explicit in Go.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#316

Post by com2kid »

baby wrote: post #209
visualstudio wrote: post #49

I could see it happening in the future. There's has been a mini resurgence in C from (normally high level language) programmers who are getting sick of web development and are interested in data oriented design. Conference benefits could be: Pushing the C standard. C11 is barely supported. Discussing new standards in a forum other than mailing lists. Did you guys know there is already a C17 standard? Letting old C de…

The problem is that nobody new to the scene wants to write C anymore. It's not a secure language, it has no convention and is full of hacks. On top of that it has undefined behaviors and is supported differently by different systems. Nowadays people want to write in Go, Rust, Swift, etc.

C is so much fun though. Having so much direct control over everything, no layers of abstraction clouding your view, is incredibly enjoyable in the right context.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#317

Post by prasanthmj »

SiVal wrote: post #222
mikestew wrote: post #19

Because though there might be building trades conferences, there are no hammer conferences. Oh, there will be tool vendors at the building trades conferences, there might be sessions on "Efficient Hammering Techniques Using Machine Learning", but there are no conferences about hammers. Don't forget about the blacksmith conference next week, they'll have hammer vendors, too. I dunno, a Ruby conference kinda makes sens…

To find the answer, I would ask, Why are there conferences for other technologies? What are they for? And I think the answer is probably 1) get useful news about recent and upcoming changes and 2) to socialize. I'm going to guess--possibly just projecting--that most C developers are older and not terribly interested in meeting new "C friends" or jumping into some hot, new "C startup". That leaves #1. Web/AI-ML/cloud/…

There should be one more reason: businesses that want to sell to that specific category.

There will be Hammer conferences if there are companies that make "handle grips" or "hand hammer protectors" who are willing to sponsor such events.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#318

Post by billrobertson42 »

SiVal wrote: post #222
mikestew wrote: post #19

Because though there might be building trades conferences, there are no hammer conferences. Oh, there will be tool vendors at the building trades conferences, there might be sessions on "Efficient Hammering Techniques Using Machine Learning", but there are no conferences about hammers. Don't forget about the blacksmith conference next week, they'll have hammer vendors, too. I dunno, a Ruby conference kinda makes sens…

To find the answer, I would ask, Why are there conferences for other technologies? What are they for? And I think the answer is probably 1) get useful news about recent and upcoming changes and 2) to socialize. I'm going to guess--possibly just projecting--that most C developers are older and not terribly interested in meeting new "C friends" or jumping into some hot, new "C startup". That leaves #1. Web/AI-ML/cloud/…

The reason that there is a conference for X is because somebody makes money running a conference for X. Be it directly or indirectly.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#319

Post by rumcajz »

simias wrote: post #214
mikestew wrote: post #19

Because though there might be building trades conferences, there are no hammer conferences. Oh, there will be tool vendors at the building trades conferences, there might be sessions on "Efficient Hammering Techniques Using Machine Learning", but there are no conferences about hammers. Don't forget about the blacksmith conference next week, they'll have hammer vendors, too. I dunno, a Ruby conference kinda makes sens…

I agree. I'm mostly a C coder but I've been on the Rust train since pretty early and I remember being pretty confused when they started putting emphasis on the Rust branding with logos, the whole "rustacean" thing, conferences, forums etc... In hindsight I get it but originally there was a bit of a culture shock. I mean I don't wear C T-shirts and as far as I can tell there's not really a standard C logo either. Mayb…

I want a C t-shirt.

Re: Why Aren't There C Conferences?

#320

Post by barry-cotter »

billrobertson42 wrote: post #318
SiVal wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To find the answer, I would ask, Why are there conferences for other technologies? What are they for? And I think the answer is probably 1) get useful news about recent and upcoming changes and 2) to socialize. I'm going to guess--possibly just projecting--that most C developers are older and not terribly interested in meeting new "C friends" or jumping into some hot, new "C startup". That leaves #1. Web/AI-ML/cloud/…

The reason that there is a conference for X is because somebody makes money running a conference for X. Be it directly or indirectly.

Yes but the reason there’s someone making money hosting a conference for X is that there’s a demand for a conference on that topic. Why is there a demand for Ruby conferences but not C ones?
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