Switching to C over 'Modern' Programming Languages

Post by coldtea » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 10:35 AM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #89

coldtea wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny how both C and LISP programmers seem to suffer from NIH to the point that they'll roll their own just for the heck of it rather than to first see if there is a library that they can use. Well, not sure about the LISP programmers, but C programmers have a good reason: they work under different environments (from embedded to Windows, legacy UNIX, the latest Ubuntu, ...) and also have different needs, regar…

What exactly is a problem with C++’s strings, or especially Rust’s? Everything you mentioned can be controlled as explicitly as you want. The only problem is C is simply not expressive enough to have proper abstractions like that.

Post by elcritch » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 10:40 AM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #48

taneq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I don’t get much programming done these days, what with all the goat herding…”

You mean atom moving? I just move atoms until the program I desire is on the computer.

Post by peterashford » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 10:51 AM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #63

weinzierl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Rust forces me to think a little bit more [..]" My reaction to that has always been that it forces us to think about the things we would have had to think anyways if we wanted to create reasonably reliable and secure software. So in the end if saves work, even if it doesn't appear like that at first.

The other side of the medal (especially for game development), is that in the higher level parts of game code you need quick turnaround times for experimentation and tweaking, and most of that code won't even make it into the final product (so all the upfront time you spent thinking about proper architecture and ownership details is wasted up there). The traditional solution is to have different languages for differe…

Post by Brian_K_White » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:16 PM UTC

peterashford wrote: post #95

flohofwoe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of the medal (especially for game development), is that in the higher level parts of game code you need quick turnaround times for experimentation and tweaking, and most of that code won't even make it into the final product (so all the upfront time you spent thinking about proper architecture and ownership details is wasted up there). The traditional solution is to have different languages for differe…

This is my main reason for not thinking that rust is good for games - a quick prototype / test / reject approach is important

Post by tourmalinetaco » Thu, Apr 13, 2023, 12:36 PM UTC

uranusjr wrote: post #72

flohofwoe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

I think parent knows. A more accurate description would be everyone of the intended audience was writing assembly. Yes there are other languages of higher levels, but C was not invented to help their users. And since they are also not really what Rust targets either, IMO it’s reasonable to shorten it to drop the qualifier in this context.