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0 pointsPommeDeTerre13y ago0 comments

Don't forget the people.

Long-time C coders are among the best programmers around. It's hard to understand just how damn good they are until one has gotten a chance to work with one or more of them.

The good ones know all levels of the hardware and software stack they're working with. Coupling this knowledge with the raw power of C, they can put together amazing and resource-efficient software in very little time, yet without sacrificing maintainability, security, portability and the other factors you've listed.

These are truly the people who make the impossible become possible.

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6 comments · 1 top-level

bjoe_lewis13y ago· 5 in thread

if this is true, then I'm going to take C more seriously. I have to move myself forward from TurboC programming.

jerf13y ago

It is true. How much of the truth is credited to "longtime" and how much is credited to "C" is up for debate, though. Personally I'd put most of it on the "longtime" side, and observe that if you want to learn how to write really efficient, performant code quickly, there are a number of other options developing where you can skip the part where you stab yourself with the language for five years learning where the sharp bits are. C is not dead yet, but I'm feeling increasingly confident we've finally entered the era where its days are now numbered.

gregsq13y ago

I'm a long time C programmer, and in the embedded space, which is a burgeoning development area, C is indispensable. No libraries or external linkages, just raw close to the metal power.

News of C's demise are premature.

metaobject13y ago

For the foreseeable future there will be application domains in which there will never be enough processing power to satisfy the subject matter experts that work in these domains. A very short list includes: atmospheric modeling, CFD applications, HPC simulations/optimization tools ... And that's in the science world. You also have OSs, DBs, web servers, HFT apps ... So, I'm not sure why you'd say that Cs days are numbered. Do you think the next high performance OS or MPI implementation will be written in some interested language?

gillianseed13y ago

based upon what? from what I've seen C is doing great, it has it's particular domains which in my opinion are low-level programming and performant, portable code with a small footprint.

I can't recall seeing a new language challenging C in the aforementioned areas.

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primitur13y ago

If you're going to take C more seriously, then I suggest you take Lua and the Lua VM more seriously, too. The reasons why:

* You can put the LuaVM in any C project, quite easily. * The Lua VM is exceptionally easy to understand C, and is highly portable to boot (extreme platform plasticity), thus: a great project to learn from * The field of scriptable VM-hosting has a bright future in software development

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