| |||||||||||||
Dennis Ritchie RIPDennis Ritchie RIPPosted Oct 13, 2011 15:08 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (subscriber, #755)In reply to: Dennis Ritchie RIP by nix Parent article: Dennis Ritchie RIP
A large part of the reason, IMHO?
How many versions of C are there? 2? Maybe 3? In 3 and a half decades?
How many versions of Your Favorite Programming Language are there? :-}
(Log in to post comments)
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 13, 2011 15:12 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
2. Maybe 3. In three and a half decades. :)
Other languages are all very well, and many of them are very nice, but none ever quite manages to knock C off its perch.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 13, 2011 18:51 UTC (Thu) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> Other languages are all very well, and many of them are very nice, but none ever quite manages to knock C off its perch.
While that is true, it doesn't mean C is a great language. Actually, I think it should have died a gory death 20 years ago. Unfortunately, it is too entrenched among systems programmers today to ever be replaced :(
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 13, 2011 20:53 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I don't see why. C is what C is and it's good at what it does that it is good at.
Tautologic Posted Oct 14, 2011 1:36 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] The same can be said about every other language, or about anything in fact! Tell you something, I have programmed using about a dozen languages now, and if I were to go back to C I would miss functional programming and (proper) objects a lot. But the heritage (from the syntax to so many ideas) is truly remarkable.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 1:59 UTC (Fri) by galanom (guest, #80787) [Link]
I think it is improper to post such a comment in the thread of the announcement of the death of its creator.
And yes, C is a great language. The only thing I miss from other languages is nested functions...
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 3:31 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> The only thing I miss from other languages is nested functions...
Then you either don't know enough other programming languages or you're just a really poor programmer.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 6:33 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
WTF. Go pick fights somewhere else OK?
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 6:44 UTC (Fri) by chad.netzer (✭ supporter ✭, #4257) [Link]
Must you really pick this thread to be so antagonistic in? Perhaps you could simply take galanom's *opinion* at face value.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 7:34 UTC (Fri) by acooks (subscriber, #49539) [Link]
Trolling on LWN? Really?
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 13, 2011 15:21 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
FORTRAN IV
Fortran 77 Fortran 90
Is there another later one?
But it seems like the old ones are still the best ones. (Oh, and I think there's only been one version of eg Forth, Smalltalk, and so on, but they're extensible (and extended till they're unrecognisable :-))
Cheers,
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 13, 2011 17:01 UTC (Thu) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
Fortran 2003
Fortran 2008
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 16, 2011 3:58 UTC (Sun) by prudra (guest, #80820) [Link]
I think the first Fortran that I used way back in 1968 on a CDC 6800(?) machine was called Fortran II.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 4:13 UTC (Fri) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link] There are at least:
But I don't think most C programmers have been much affected by changes after 'ANSI C', even though they are important to some.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 14, 2011 16:44 UTC (Fri) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]
I recently had to change some code to compile with an older compiler, and the only C99 feature that I found hard to give up is the ability to declare variables anywhere in a block, instead of just at the top. It's easy to get used to that.
Dennis Ritchie RIP Posted Oct 21, 2011 17:19 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] But I don't think most C programmers have been much affected by changes after 'ANSI C', even though they are important to some. And they weren't even affected much by ANSI C. How often do you see "const" and bit fields used in C? Tradition seems to be a big part of the culture of C. In addition to this not embracing new features, I think of tab characters and editor choice. I think that love of tradition accounts for its persistence more than anything.
|
|||||||||||||