How Relevant is C in 2014?

Nerval's Lobster writes: Many programming languages have come and gone since Dennis Ritchie devised C in 1972, and yet C has not only survived three major revisions, but continues to thrive. But aside from this incredible legacy, what keeps C atop the Tiobe Index? The number of jobs available for C programmers is not huge, and many of those also include C++ and Objective-C. On Reddit, the C community, while one of the ten most popular programming communities, is half the size of the C++ group. In a new column, David Bolton argues that C remains extremely relevant due to a number of factors including newer C compiler support, the Internet ("basically driven by C applications"), an immense amount of active software written in C that's still used, and its ease in learning. "Knowing C provides a handy insight into higher-level languages — C++, Objective-C, Perl, Python, Java, PHP, C#, D and Go all have block syntax that's derived from C." Do you agree?

Comments

Si.

[Anonymous Coward]

Si.

Re:Si.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have gone out of my way to never use that letter. Notise that at first it kan be a bit diffikult but you get used to it.

Re:Si.

[Thiez]

Said the Anonymous Coward...

Re:Si.

[jc42]

I have gone out of my way to never use that letter. Notise that at first it kan be a bit diffikult but you get used to it.

In English, pretty much the only "real" use of 'c' rather than 's' or 'k' is in the digraph "ch", which represents a phoneme that has no other standard spelling. However, you kan replase it with "tsh", which produses the same phoneme bekause phonetikally "ch" really is just 't' + 'sh'. So with this tshoise of letters, you kan further approatsh the kommendable goal of replasing an utterly unnesessary English letter with a more phonetikally-korrekt ekwivalent. At the same time, we kan make kwik work of replasing that idiotik 'q' with a sensible replasement.

(Kyue the Mark Twain kwotes on the topik. ;-)

Relevant C

[smittyoneeach]

Relevant C
2B || !2B
Either learn what you're doing
Or stick to the Wii
Burma Shave

Re:Relevant C

[BarbaraHudson]

To "C" or not to "C", that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of java coders,
Or to take arms against a sea of perl,
And by opposing end them? To die(): To sleep()
No more; and by die() to say we exit(),
The heart-ache of the thousand malloc()s
That c code is heir to, ’tis a consummation (of ram)
Devoutly to be wish’d to die() when we forget to free(),
To sleep(): perchance to dream(): ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep() of die() what random() instructions may come
When we have shuffled off other's poor performance,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect That makes durability of so long C;
Burma Shave
For who would bear the whips and scorns of n00bs,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s memory managed tools,

Re:Very relevent for small target embedded stuff.

[jareth-0205]

C is the high-level language there. If you want actual control over your target, you'll need to use assembly.

Luxury! You trust a compiler? When I were a lad we inputted the hex codes directly.
/
Well of course we had it tough... tape and a magnetised pin was all we needed.
/
You kids don't know you were born... we used to program using a cigarette end to burn holes in the punch cards.
/
etc...

Re:First post

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

We're talking about C. You want the zeroeth post.

Re:C is very relevant in 2014,

[juanfgs]

. As a long time C hack (still am) I concur.

Behold. A C program that has gained sentience.

Re:First post

[Letophoro]

We're talking about C. You want the zeroeth post.

You have to remember, there are two kinds of people in the world:
1) Those who begin their indexes at 1.
-and-
1) Those who begin their indexes at 0.

Re:C is very relevant in 2014,

[mrchaotica]

C gives you a gun with which you can shoot yourself in the foot. C++ gives you the gun too, but at least it's got a safety on it that you have to disable.

No, no, no, you got the saying all wrong! Here's how it goes:

In C, you shoot yourself in the foot.

In C++, you accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me over there."

Or alternatively,

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off. -- Bjarne Stroustrup