undefined | Better HN

0 pointsburpsnard6y ago0 comments

It's worth popping the hood and getting your fingers dirty. C was written in an era where memory was a scarce and precious resource to be grudgingly used if absolutely necessary

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

tsimionescu6y ago

Please note that C is quite a few years older than the first GC languages. LISP1.5, ALGOL-68 and APL all had garbage collectors before C even existed.

Not to say that it's not worth it to learn manual memory management as well, but it is important not to think that GCs are a fancy modern tool, and that greybeards would never touch one. There were greybeards using punch cards and programming in a GC language, with output printed out on paper.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse