Hendrik wrote:
> This is exactly why C is going to stay around -- people use it because
> it is popular, and it's popular because peope use it. I couldn't have
> expressed it better myself.
This whole thread is a joke, right? C is popular?
It start off with the false claim that "C is obsolete", which was
then back pedaled into, "well, it's still okay in certain circumstances."
Add a tall cool glass of "it's unsafe", Then throw in the side order of
"it sucks but it's popular, what can you do?"
There was an interesting comment in the thread, that got ignored, that some
are worried C programmers are a growing shortage. If that's true, maybe
you'll get what I presume is your wish; that C will finally die.
Engineers use what works, despite what theorists might want in some imaginary,
unproven context. It's disingenuous to claim it's all about popularity.
My comment about "computer scientists" was in contrast to software engineers.
In my experience the former do a lot of navel gazing, the latter get stuff done.
I think the latter are also remunerated better. Most of the compsci heavy
lifting seems to have been done 4-5 decades ago, leaving plenty of time now
for the pet-language, pet-compiler projects and book writing.
Anyhow, I'm still waiting a the counter point to the fact that the largest
multi-decade, free software projects (various kernels, X) are built in C
because it's actually on merit. I mean something other than it's simply
inertia from a popularity contest.
I don't believe that simplistic argument any more than I believe it in
the context of why all the *BSDs have fallen to the wayside at the feet
of Linux.
If the kernel wasn't written in C, this whole thread wouldn't have much
business being on this list. Maybe we can move this thread over to lkml
and get the ball rolling on the rewrite.
-E
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