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0 pointsnerdponx2y ago0 comments

The point that I think everyone else is missing is that C is actually hard to work with and write correctly. If your project is sophisticated enough that you can't get by with basic tools, then maybe C isn't the best language for your project.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

dotnet002y ago· 1 in thread

I think this idea of "basic tools" is highly debatable, especially with developers who are young enough for heavy IDEs like visual studio to have been their intro to coding (or similarly for people who enjoy programming but aren't so invested in the entire computer software stack to really care about knowing their environment particularly well).

Eg while I enjoy understanding all the layers of software in a computer and am perfectly comfortable with vim and a makefile (although I prefer vscode and cmake), most of the other developers I work with are just as competent with C, but can't really function if they can't use visual studio. To them visual studio is the basic tool and vim+make are advanced tools.

nerdponxOP2y ago

I meant "basic" in the sense that it does not have a lot of helpful features for developing complicated applications. Whether or not that's easy or hard for any individual to use isn't really relevant.

That said, Vim has some IDE-like features, moreso for C (by default) than some other languages.

Again, the point is that C is complicated and hard to work with as you scale up into a bigger project, not that my tools are better than your tools.

stjohnswarts2y ago· 1 in thread

more gatekeeping. If I'm using C I want to use modern tools like every other language. If my environment doesn't have a debugger, tools like valgrind, linter, etc I don't have any use for it.

nerdponxOP2y ago

Please see my reply to the sibling comment. It's not gatekeeping, it's meant to be a criticism of the C language itself.

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