Conversation

Notices

1. AdmiralBell (admiralbell@witches.town)'s status on Thursday, 27-Jul-2017 23:55:08 UTC AdmiralBell

   C was a mistake. Even in the 70s there were better programming languages. But, the outsized influence of AT&T and the popularity of Unix meant that they C won out. For four decades buffer overruns have reigned.

   The industry is finally pulling itself out of the Dark Age of C. All major new languages are embracing strong safety guarantees and powerful type systems. The one exception is Go.

   Rob Pike and Ken Thompson, both formerly of Bell Labs, are back with a new terrible programming language. Go has a pathetic type system, an astounding disregard for safety, and the backing of a massive tech company. It will ruin the next 40 years. 👿

   • Hallå Kitteh repeated this.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 28-Jul-2017 01:35:26 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to
     @admiralbell I don't think it was the AT&T+Unix influence only. C was popular because it was high-level assembly, and because the language definition was loose enough to cram it into various platforms while staying close to the metal.
     
     But I agree that we have been using too much C. It should have been a tool for core systems programming, not for applications.
     
     > [Go] will ruin the next 40 years.
     
     It's popular, but not *that* popular.
     
     JavaScript will ruin the next 40 years. And here is proof, from the future: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript
   • awg (awg@gnusocial.de)'s status on Friday, 28-Jul-2017 01:50:12 UTC awg

     in reply to

     • Hallå Kitteh
     @admiralbell @clacke said it better than me, but don't overstate AT&T's influence. if anything, AT&T's licensing proved a firm impediment to UNIX's adoption at a time when practically everyone wanted to use it.  the eager embrace of BSD and its derivatives, and eventually even Linux, was a convoluted and inevitable outcome of the "outsized influence" of a company bent on regulating UNIX rather than promoting it.
     Hallå Kitteh likes this.
     Hallå Kitteh repeated this.