Rustfags insulting C.
Juliafags insulting R.
PHP and JS shit everywhere
Which one and why?
Jackson Cooper
Alexander Martin
It's trivial to rewrite on other platforms.
any who, my code is more novelty than novel.
pairing a function pointer with data should be done with a struct.
HOPs in C are fine with a little boilerplate and pointer casting.
its the same approach used by every library with callbacks.
struct vproc1 { void (*p)(void*,void*); void *d; };void vproc1_call(vproc1 *x, void *v) { x->p(x->d, v); }void for_each_array(vproc *p, void **x, int s){ int i; for (i = 0; i < s; i++) vproc1_call(p, x[i]);}
I've spent loads of time trying to extend C using lowlevel hacks and it always falls short of doing it the dumb way.
I've used the codegen approach to make methods work like x->meth(...) instead of x->meth(x, ...), but this is runtime overhead for a syntax sugar.
same thing with coroutines, you might think the posix getcontext/setcontext are an option, but the performance is absolue shit compared to a callback queue.
If you try to make C elegant you waste time.
tldr; if closures, objects, or coroutines are how you model your software, trying to adapt the style in C will result in worse performance and infinitely more bugs.
Mason Cook
FTFY
Nathan Fisher
Any time you see someone talk about "C" being replaced here it is Rustcuck talking to you.
Josiah Watson
maybe in your dependent typed haskell with 30 extensions or shitty ocaml or whatever hipster bullshit system you use
Oliver Lee
heh, I agree.
the software that made C popular was designed to discourage use of C (sh, lex, yacc, awk, sed).
C was for compiler construction, and is more of an UNCOL paired with an ABI.
Why it caught on as *the* systems programming language?
Why not Algol? Bliss? Pascal?
My guess is ken's cc was the most studied peice of "real world" code, whereas other languages were fucked over by ivory-tower commitee driven design.
David Sullivan
Never read that one.
I should also point out that I was referring to how good the books are in terms of CS introduction, rather than teaching coding style.
As for coding style, SICP is much better for containing proper programming vocabulary and ideology.
In my opinion, one should ideally read The Elements of Computing Systems first, then SICP if he finds it proper, then whatever he finds necesarry if he does so.
Ryan Bennett
They used C because it was the only compiled language guaranteed to exist on Unix. C's poor support for data structures make it a bad language for compiler construction.
It's because of the PC and Windows. These also made x86 the most popular architecture even though 68K and ALPHA were faster at the time.
Because Microsoft chose to write Windows in C, which made other languages on Windows second-class. Microsoft had a C compiler. If the Mac was more popular than the PC at the time, we would probably be using Pascal. They were talking about making a successor to Algol 68 in the 80s. If IBM went with CP/M, we would probably be using PL/I. Microsoft killed classic VB when it was their most popular language. Those all failed for business or "political" reasons, not technological ones.
Most early 80s programming books don't mention C, and as the 80s went on, C started showing up gradually. Most C code was written after ANSI standardization in 1989. There were a lot more active ANSI and ISO standards groups back then (Pascal, PL/I, Algol, APL, Basic, Lisp, Prolog), so C was just another language at the time. There was a clear continuity from the 50s to the early 90s and then when C became popular, that knowledge and technology was lost.
Parker Long
What's with the Unix Haters fags and calling people weenies? It sounds whiny and retarded.
Evan Wood
Yeah seriously. I wasn't big on reading CS papers, I thought they were all irrelevant theoretical crap... But when I started browsing these older papers I got hooked. It's impressive how much our antecessors have accomplished... Many of our databases are based on 70s technology and science. I used to think technology of today was state of the art, but when I look at some older IBMs I doubt that notion. Areas that today are pretty much dead, such as programming languages and operating systems research, used to be brimming with life. I started collecting these papers... And I'm always worried that I'm missing some hidden gem that was lost to time.
I wish there was an extensive, annotated bibliography.