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Miloslav Ciz 2024-03-02 20:30:32 +01:00
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@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ Firstly let's sum up some of the reasons why C is so good:
- **It's extremely well establishes, optimized, stable and time tested, with many tools**: Being among the oldest languages, the language of the old time [hackers](hacking.md) and the language of [Unix](unix.md), maybe the most important piece of software in history, C has been so widely adopted, reimplemented, optimized and tested over and over that it's considered to be among the most essential pieces of software any platform has to have. Everything on the low level is written in C, so you essentially first have to have C to be able to run anything else. Many companies have invested great many resources to making C fast as it benefited them. While other languages come and go, or at least mutate and become something else over time, C stands as one of very few stable things in computer technology. There are also tons and tons of tools that help with C development, various static analyzers, debuggers, code beautifiers etcetc.
- **It doesn't have any [modern](modern.md) [bullshit](bullshit.md)**: There is no [OOP](oop.md), [generics](generics.md), [garbage collection](garbage_collection.md), no [package manager](package_manager.md) etc.
- **There is a huge number of [compilers](compiler.md)**: While a "[modern](modern.md)" language has some kind of main reference implementation and then maybe one of two alternative implementations, C has dozens (maybe even hundreds) of compilers. You'll find compilers under all the [licenses](license.md), huge ones with many features and great optimizations, small ones that will run on tiny devices, ones that compile very fast, ones that translate C to other languages etcetc.
- **It is elitist**: The relatively higher difficulty of learning the language has a nice effect of keeping idiots out of its community, keeping the language less intoxicated by retarded ideas.
- **It is elitist**: The relatively higher difficulty of learning the language has a nice effect of keeping idiots out of its community, keeping the language less intoxicated by retarded ideas. { NOTE: The word "elitist" here is not to really mean inherently "discriminating" of course, but rather "unpopular" because it's quite different from the mainstream and requires some effort on unlearning bad mainstream habits, i.e. nowadays it needs some dedication, you can't just join in effortlessly. It's elitist in the same way in which Unix systems or suckless software are elitist. ~drummyfish }
- **C is close to the [hardware](hw.md), reflecting how computers work**: This has many advantages: firstly efficiency, as code that maps well to hardware is predictable and efficient, lacking [magic](magic.md) in translation. It simplifies implementations, making the language more free. Then also the programmer himself is close to the machine, he has to learn how it works, what it likes and dislikes -- a knowledge every programmer has to have.
- **There is a great balance between low and high level (minimalism vs "features")**: C seems to have hit a sweet spot at which it offers just enough high level features for comfortable programming, such as [data types](data_type.md), functions and expressions, while not crossing the line beyond which it would have to pay a high cost for this comfort, i.e. it managed to buy us a lot practically for free. Things like this cannot really be planned well, it takes a genius and intuition to design a language this way, this shows the greatness of the old master programmers.
- **It is [old](old.md), written only by white male [hackers](hacking.md), at times when [capitalism](capitalism.md) was weaker**: No [women](woman.md) were probably involved in the development (of course we aren't racists or sexists, it's just a fact that white men are best at programming), the development was largely part of genuine research, at the time when computers weren't mainstream and computer technology wasn't being raped as hard as today. C developers didn't even think of embedding any political message in the language. Times like this will never be repeated.