Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages • Hacker News Board

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#51

Post by Fell » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 7:58 AM UTC

I used to love C for its simplicity. There was just no surprises, and the limited feature set enforced a certain programming style that also happens to run very well on modern CPUs.

But the C standard library is just awful. It's so inconsistent and full of quirks you just have to know. Like how some string functions allow you to specify a size, while others don't. And how strtok keeps track of an internal state and behaves differently on subsequent calls.

I wish there was a language that as simple and limited as C, but with modern (and portable) functions for things like strings, networking, graphics and so on.

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#52

Post by Ygg2 » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 7:58 AM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #40

hnarn wrote: post #16

Is this becoming a thing now (or maybe it was always a thing), where a language, like Rust, has become popular enough that instead of everyone talking about learning it, they now want to talk about how “simple” and “beautiful” C is for no other reason than signaling how different you are from the zeitgeist? Rust exists for a reason, and it solves specific problems. That’s the “magic”, just like any abstraction in any…

> Is this becoming a thing now Maybe we are entering an era where C is cool again!

I doubt it, even NSA is against C. Guess they got tired of all the null pointer vulnerabilities.

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#53

Post by mprovost » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:00 AM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #18

throwawaymaths wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. Assembly is an abstraction too. Do you think the CPU actually runs the code you give it? Of course not. There's microcode, register aliasing, speculative execution, etc. Even assembly itself has symbols and labels, which are themselves abstractions.

The difference is that a CPU does way less magic under the hood than an optimizing compiler for a high level language, and there's no such thing as UB in assembly (outside some exotic cases like 'illegal' instructions on the 6502 which behave unpredictably)

Meltdown/Spectre pulled back the curtain and revealed just how much magic is going on with modern CPUs.

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#54

Post by hnarn » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:02 AM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #40

hnarn wrote: post #16

Is this becoming a thing now (or maybe it was always a thing), where a language, like Rust, has become popular enough that instead of everyone talking about learning it, they now want to talk about how “simple” and “beautiful” C is for no other reason than signaling how different you are from the zeitgeist? Rust exists for a reason, and it solves specific problems. That’s the “magic”, just like any abstraction in any…

> Is this becoming a thing now Maybe we are entering an era where C is cool again!

Maybe it will intersect with the year of the Linux desktop :-)

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#55

Post by hnarn » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:03 AM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #37

hnarn wrote: post #16

Is this becoming a thing now (or maybe it was always a thing), where a language, like Rust, has become popular enough that instead of everyone talking about learning it, they now want to talk about how “simple” and “beautiful” C is for no other reason than signaling how different you are from the zeitgeist? Rust exists for a reason, and it solves specific problems. That’s the “magic”, just like any abstraction in any…

Maybe the zeitgeist is "being different from others for no reason"...

That’s a very good point.

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#56

Post by flohofwoe » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:05 AM UTC

KyeRussell wrote: post #49

flohofwoe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of big productivity desktop applications written in C++ (which almost always also includes a significant amount of C code in 3rd-party libraries), pretty much all 3D modelling/animation tools, Photoshop, browsers... Also: memory fragmentation is only an issue if you don't have a proper memory management strategy (which you absolute need in any non-trivial code base, even in GC'ed languages).

It’s pretty reasonable to argue that were these things written again, less than 100% of it would be in C[++]. It’d also pretty reasonable to argue that that percentage will be even smaller 5 years from now.

Sure, but that's a theoretical scenario, because this type of applications won't be written anymore. Anything that's relevant in those areas had been started in the early to mid 90's (even the 'newcomer' Blender had been released first in 1995).

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#57

Post by dgan » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:07 AM UTC

coreyp_1 wrote: post #2

This is how I feel about C++. It's enjoyable to use! I'm happy to use Python or JavaScript or something else when appropriate, but coming back to C++ is like sitting on your porch, enjoying a cool breeze and the relaxing after a hard day of juggling magic.

I do have an occasional cozy feeling about the time where I was writing VBA for a french bank lol. I thankful that time is gone, but ! VBA is simple, and may be enjoyable to use!

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#58

Post by version_five » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:11 AM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #37

hnarn wrote: post #16

Is this becoming a thing now (or maybe it was always a thing), where a language, like Rust, has become popular enough that instead of everyone talking about learning it, they now want to talk about how “simple” and “beautiful” C is for no other reason than signaling how different you are from the zeitgeist? Rust exists for a reason, and it solves specific problems. That’s the “magic”, just like any abstraction in any…

Maybe the zeitgeist is "being different from others for no reason"...

I started a side project in C earlier this year, and now I'm a little upset at the prospect that doing that is going to be seen as some hipster niche. I felt the same way when everyone started growing beards.

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#59

Post by flohofwoe » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:19 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #38

ChrisRR wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a C programmer by day and I disagree with them, C is only simple if you're trying to do simple tasks with it. The very common thing I want to use in C is some sort of variable size string object. But no, I have to dynamically allocate a buffer that I know will be at least the right size for any text I ever put into it, or do I create a buffer that's the correct size for that string but re-alloc if I ever change i…

>I'm a C programmer by day and I disagree with them, C is only simple if you're trying to do simple tasks with it. C gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot. And rightfully so. It came out in a time when everyone was coding assembly. It's meant not to hold you back from doing voodoo with low-level stuff, therefore it won't hold your hand. Not very practical in the world of today when we've been spoiled by…

> when everyone was coding assembly..

This was before my time, but I think it's a common misconception (only true for operating system development). When C was created, there was already Lisp, Cobol, Fortran, Algol, Simula, BASIC... and SmallTalk and Prolog were just around the corner - and most of those are much higher level than C).

Re: Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

#60

Post by t-3 » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 8:21 AM UTC

spoiler wrote: post #28

hnarn wrote: post #16

Is this becoming a thing now (or maybe it was always a thing), where a language, like Rust, has become popular enough that instead of everyone talking about learning it, they now want to talk about how “simple” and “beautiful” C is for no other reason than signaling how different you are from the zeitgeist? Rust exists for a reason, and it solves specific problems. That’s the “magic”, just like any abstraction in any…

> they now want to talk about how “simple” and “beautiful” C is for no other reason than signaling how different you are from the zeitgeist? It sounds to me like they keep learning languages with the same illusions and failing to take any lessons between their language exploration escapades. All programming languages suck. It's just about finding the one that sucks the least for you (or your project/business). They m…

> All programming languages suck. It's just about finding the one that sucks the least for you (or your project/business).

Very true, but C is the standard language on *nixes, so it's often the one that sucks less. It also strikes a good balance between mental burden and expressiveness for writing simple programs that aren't so trivial that they're just a shell script or one-liner. Rust is just too ugly and verbose to make it what I reach for to quickly hack out a throwaway utility with.