🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
For no particular reason, I am feeling nostalgic for Turbo Pascal.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
I'm also feeling nostalgic for MPW Pascal, and the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop in general.
I was sad when Apple ditched Pascal for C.
Pascal was not perfect, by any means. I've programmed professionally in Ada, one of Pascal's successors, and liked it pretty well.
I wanted to use Modula 3, "an elegant weapon for a more civilized age," and dabbled in it a little, but there was no market for it.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
People sometimes ask what my favorite programming language is. Probably Smalltalk, except that I prefer strong typing, and Smalltalk wants to be its own world, like FORTH, rather than being used to create "native" applications. I usually reply that I have no favorite, because all programming languages suck. Some suck less than others.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
C was OK as a systems programming language for the PDP-11 in the 1970s. The minimalism that was absolutely _required_ for that has not been a benefit to good software design practices since the mid-1980s.
As the late, great C.A.R. Hoare said of ALGOL 60, "Here is a language so far ahead of its time that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but also on nearly all its successors."
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
When I tell people that I have no favorite programming language, inevitably their next question is what programming languages do I use.
"Mostly C and C++, and some Python. Various others rarely as needed."
Then I'm asked why, especially since I consider C to be terrible.
"The customer is always right."
Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@brouhaha "Then I'm asked why, especially since I consider C to be terrible." .... BLASPHEMY ! 😎 Well ok it's not as good as C++ but how can you call C "terrible" !?
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11

@gilesgoat
#1 reason: very weak typing without runtime checking

C++ is worse than C! By being an almost-superset of C, it has all of the deficiencies of C, and adds many new ones of its own!

I will, however, admit that modern C++ does make it more practical to avoid the C pitfalls. Unfortunately it can't actually prevent them. The onus is in the programmer to know what to avoid. That's a crock.

Show threadGiles GoatMar 11
@brouhaha .. and yet I think 'those may be reasons to love C too' ... I am getting emotional here 😊
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11

@gilesgoat
C is a good language for a very limited problem domain. The problem is that it gets used for nearly everything, and mostly far outside that limited domain.

C combines some of the power of assembly language with almost all of the danger of assembly language.

Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEMar 11
@brouhaha @gilesgoat Are there still people using C? - I haven't had to touch it for decades.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
@TimWardCam @gilesgoat
Most of the C I'm paid to write is for microcontrollers, either on bare metal, or with a small RTOS like FreeRTOS or Zephyr. Most software I'm paid to write for host computers is in C++ or Python.
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE

@brouhaha @gilesgoat Oh, OK.

One might characterise C as "BCPL, but with the ability to address bytes not just words". From which point of view a microcontroller (where you're counting every single byte of ROM) is indeed a valid use case 🤣

Mar 11 at 10:41pmWeb
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 11
@TimWardCam @gilesgoat On the other hand, languages like Ada and Rust actually can effectively target small-memory microcontrollers. Ada actually does have facilities for managing bits and bytes (optional, Chapter 13, Representation Specifications, actually more powerful than what C gives you, undefined layout bit fields).