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  3. C is a better language than any language you care to name.

C is a better language than any language you care to name.

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  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

    It's a good language, but in the modern world it's a bit...outclassed. If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury! If you want desktop work, then C# or C++ have so many massive advantages in terms of OOPs design that there really isn't any comparison. It'll take you a lot longer to write the same app in C, and it'll almost certainly be harder to maintain. If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C... It's a product of it's time: it was designed to be "better than COBOL and FORTRAN". But the world has moved on, and the "competition" is a lot more sophisticated now.

    Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

    M Offline
    M Offline
    Marco Bertschi
    wrote on last edited by
    #13

    OriginalGriff wrote:

    If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury!

    This depends a lot on the Compiler and IDE used. While it is still true for a lot of Compilers, nowadays there are Compilers out there which make C code as efficient as Assembler code (at really high licence cost, of course - You are probably still cheaper off with Assemble).

    I will never again mention that Dalek Dave was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel.
    The console is a black place [taken from Q&A]
    How to ask a question

    OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • S snorkie

      C is for COOKIE

      C Offline
      C Offline
      Chris Maunder
      wrote on last edited by
      #14

      And, dammit, that's good enough for him.

      cheers Chris Maunder

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

        It's a good language, but in the modern world it's a bit...outclassed. If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury! If you want desktop work, then C# or C++ have so many massive advantages in terms of OOPs design that there really isn't any comparison. It'll take you a lot longer to write the same app in C, and it'll almost certainly be harder to maintain. If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C... It's a product of it's time: it was designed to be "better than COBOL and FORTRAN". But the world has moved on, and the "competition" is a lot more sophisticated now.

        Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

        Mike HankeyM Offline
        Mike HankeyM Offline
        Mike Hankey
        wrote on last edited by
        #15

        Right tool for the right job. Not a lot of people use assembler in embedded work mostly C and a lot of them just because they've used it for so long it has become the language of choice. As embedded hardware evolves and memory and speed less of a problem higher level languages will eventually replace C.

        Here today gone to Maui...

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • C Chris Maunder

          Discuss. I've just read The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C[^] and decided to outsource my ranting response to it

          cheers Chris Maunder

          E Offline
          E Offline
          ed welch
          wrote on last edited by
          #16

          That article is all wrong. The guy assumes that just because a feature exists you are forced to use it. Most expercienced c++ programers are only using a small subset of the language.

          P 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

            It's a good language, but in the modern world it's a bit...outclassed. If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury! If you want desktop work, then C# or C++ have so many massive advantages in terms of OOPs design that there really isn't any comparison. It'll take you a lot longer to write the same app in C, and it'll almost certainly be harder to maintain. If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C... It's a product of it's time: it was designed to be "better than COBOL and FORTRAN". But the world has moved on, and the "competition" is a lot more sophisticated now.

            Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

            J Offline
            J Offline
            Jeremy Falcon
            wrote on last edited by
            #17

            OriginalGriff wrote:

            It's a good language, but in the modern world it's a bit...outclassed.

            Agreed.

            OriginalGriff wrote:

            If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury!

            I agree with this too, except my take on it is if I don't know ASM that well, then I'm better off just using C and hoping the compiler will optimize it well enough.

            OriginalGriff wrote:

            It'll take you a lot longer to write the same app in C, and it'll almost certainly be harder to maintain.
            If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C...

            Agree-ish with this too, except I can write a large scale maintainable app in C. To me that's more to do with the programmer than the language.

            OriginalGriff wrote:

            If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C...

            Or as Marc Clifton would say, good luck doing it in any language. :)

            Jeremy Falcon

            OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • J Jeremy Falcon

              Roger Wright wrote:

              Then came C, and the death spiral of useful language development began.

              It's like just as soon as computers get faster, we want to make the languages more bloated. That way we never enjoy the new speed, we simply keep things the same and have a new cool shiny layer that sounds technical to toss on top of it. I've never made a programming language, but when I think of something like Ruby, which has some nice features, and then I think it's slow as dirt so I'll never use it. Just because CPUs are faster doesn't mean we can waste cycles, otherwise it's always a game of catch up.

              Jeremy Falcon

              L Offline
              L Offline
              Lost User
              wrote on last edited by
              #18

              Jeremy Falcon wrote:

              It's like just as soon as computers get faster, we want to make the languages more bloated.

              ...and it flows straight down to our operating systems and applications. IMHO - A fresh Windows 2K and Office 2K install is still the fastest, cleanest, most productive Microsoft office stack ever made.

              Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

              OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • C Chris Maunder

                Discuss. I've just read The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C[^] and decided to outsource my ranting response to it

                cheers Chris Maunder

                L Offline
                L Offline
                Lost User
                wrote on last edited by
                #19

                A language where simple integer addition is allowed to cause nasal daemons is immediately disqualified for the title "best language".

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • J Jeremy Falcon

                  OriginalGriff wrote:

                  It's a good language, but in the modern world it's a bit...outclassed.

                  Agreed.

                  OriginalGriff wrote:

                  If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury!

                  I agree with this too, except my take on it is if I don't know ASM that well, then I'm better off just using C and hoping the compiler will optimize it well enough.

                  OriginalGriff wrote:

                  It'll take you a lot longer to write the same app in C, and it'll almost certainly be harder to maintain.
                  If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C...

                  Agree-ish with this too, except I can write a large scale maintainable app in C. To me that's more to do with the programmer than the language.

                  OriginalGriff wrote:

                  If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C...

                  Or as Marc Clifton would say, good luck doing it in any language. :)

                  Jeremy Falcon

                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                  OriginalGriff
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #20

                  You can write large scale, maintainable code in any language - even assembler! Conversely, you can also write small scale unreadable cr@p in any language (look at QA if you don't believe me) But...as the scale increases, it becomes easier to produce better code in an OOPs language, and harder in a non-OOps languages. It's like designing a car: you need to use powerful tools on a computer these days just to fit everything into the engine bay - you couldn't do it in a reasonable time frame using clay and palette knives!

                  Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                  "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                  "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                  J 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • M Marco Bertschi

                    OriginalGriff wrote:

                    If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury!

                    This depends a lot on the Compiler and IDE used. While it is still true for a lot of Compilers, nowadays there are Compilers out there which make C code as efficient as Assembler code (at really high licence cost, of course - You are probably still cheaper off with Assemble).

                    I will never again mention that Dalek Dave was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel.
                    The console is a black place [taken from Q&A]
                    How to ask a question

                    OriginalGriffO Offline
                    OriginalGriffO Offline
                    OriginalGriff
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #21

                    I agree that compilers do produce good code: but they can't interpret what the author is trying to get the hardware to do and that means what they generate can be spectacularly inefficient. I had this problem with the ARM development kit (which was stupid money) - I needed to generate a specific wave output with my data to match the hardware it was interfacing to - and the C / Embedded C++ code just wouldn't do it no matter what I tried. In assembler it was trivial (but I eventually fitted a second PIC processor just to handle the interface - and coded that in C :laugh: )

                    Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                    "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                    "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                    F 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                      It's a good language, but in the modern world it's a bit...outclassed. If you want small tight code for embedded work, then assembler is probably a good bet - though C is very useful there, it does tend to generate bloated code compared to that produced by a good assembler programmer. The C code will be produced faster, but it'll need more RAM, more processor, more...in embedded work you don't always have the luxury! If you want desktop work, then C# or C++ have so many massive advantages in terms of OOPs design that there really isn't any comparison. It'll take you a lot longer to write the same app in C, and it'll almost certainly be harder to maintain. If you want to write a website, then good luck doing it in C... It's a product of it's time: it was designed to be "better than COBOL and FORTRAN". But the world has moved on, and the "competition" is a lot more sophisticated now.

                      Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                      C Offline
                      C Offline
                      CPallini
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #22

                      Hardly I need to write assembly code for PIC24 microcontrollers.

                      Veni, vidi, vici.

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • C Chris Maunder

                        Discuss. I've just read The Unreasonable Effectiveness of C[^] and decided to outsource my ranting response to it

                        cheers Chris Maunder

                        R Offline
                        R Offline
                        Ravi Bhavnani
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #23

                        Define "better". /ravi

                        My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                        OriginalGriffO C W 3 Replies Last reply
                        0
                        • L Lost User

                          Jeremy Falcon wrote:

                          It's like just as soon as computers get faster, we want to make the languages more bloated.

                          ...and it flows straight down to our operating systems and applications. IMHO - A fresh Windows 2K and Office 2K install is still the fastest, cleanest, most productive Microsoft office stack ever made.

                          Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

                          OriginalGriffO Offline
                          OriginalGriffO Offline
                          OriginalGriff
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #24

                          ...for about a week....:laugh:

                          Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                          "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                          "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • R Ravi Bhavnani

                            Define "better". /ravi

                            My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                            OriginalGriffO Offline
                            OriginalGriffO Offline
                            OriginalGriff
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #25

                            "Someone who gambles"

                            Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                            "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                            "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                            R 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                              "Someone who gambles"

                              Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

                              R Offline
                              R Offline
                              Ravi Bhavnani
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #26

                              Isn't that "bettor"? /ravi

                              My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                              L R 2 Replies Last reply
                              0
                              • Mike HankeyM Mike Hankey

                                C and AOL is there anything else?

                                Here today gone to Maui...

                                Z Offline
                                Z Offline
                                ZurdoDev
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #27

                                NetScape Navigator?

                                There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • C Chris Losinger

                                  C++ is better.

                                  image processing toolkits | batch image processing

                                  Z Offline
                                  Z Offline
                                  ZurdoDev
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #28

                                  It's twice as good.

                                  There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

                                  F 1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • J Jeremy Falcon

                                    Roger Wright wrote:

                                    Then came C, and the death spiral of useful language development began.

                                    It's like just as soon as computers get faster, we want to make the languages more bloated. That way we never enjoy the new speed, we simply keep things the same and have a new cool shiny layer that sounds technical to toss on top of it. I've never made a programming language, but when I think of something like Ruby, which has some nice features, and then I think it's slow as dirt so I'll never use it. Just because CPUs are faster doesn't mean we can waste cycles, otherwise it's always a game of catch up.

                                    Jeremy Falcon

                                    C Offline
                                    C Offline
                                    CPallini
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #29

                                    Lua is not bloated, for instance.

                                    Veni, vidi, vici.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • R Ravi Bhavnani

                                      Define "better". /ravi

                                      My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                                      C Offline
                                      C Offline
                                      CPallini
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #30

                                      'C'

                                      Veni, vidi, vici.

                                      K 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • R Ravi Bhavnani

                                        Isn't that "bettor"? /ravi

                                        My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                                        L Offline
                                        L Offline
                                        Lost User
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #31

                                        You bet.

                                        Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

                                        M 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • C CPallini

                                          'C'

                                          Veni, vidi, vici.

                                          K Offline
                                          K Offline
                                          Kenneth Haugland
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #32

                                          How about iC instead? Apple inspired :laugh:

                                          C 1 Reply Last reply
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