29 Sep
2024
29 Sep
'24
12:05 a.m.
On Sat, Sep 28, 2024 at 11:58:12AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
The problem is that, like James Madison's fictive
government of angels,
such entities don't exist. The staff of the CSRC itself may have been
overwhelmingly populated with frank, modest, and self-deprecating
people--and I'll emphasize here that I'm aware of no accounts that this
is anything but true--but C unfortunately played a part in stoking a
culture of pretension among software developers. "C is a language in
which wizards program. I program in C. Therefore I'm a wizard." is how
the syllogism (spot the fallacy) went. I don't know who does more
damage--the people who believe their own BS, or the ones who know
they're scamming their colleagues.
I have a somewhat different view. I have a son who is learning to program
and he asked me about C. I said "C is like driving a sports car on a
twisty mountain road that has cliffs and no guard rails. If you want to
check your phone while you are driving, it's not for you. It requires
your full, focussed attention. So that sounds bad, right? Well, if
you are someone who enjoys driving a sports car, and are good at it,
perhaps C is for you."
So I guess I fit the description of thinking I'm a wizard, sort of. I'm
good at C, there is plenty of my C open sourced, you can go read it and
decide for yourself. I enjoy C. But it's not for everyone, in fact,
most programmers these days would be better off in Rust or something
that has guardrails.
I get your points, Branden, but I'd prefer that C sticks around for
the people who enjoy it and are good at it. A small crowd, for sure.
--lm