/prog/ - Is learning C really a must for a programmer?

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:17

Many have this opinion. Somehow, by doing manual memory management allocation and garbage mangement one would become a better programmer.

I have little experience in C mainly because I can write terser and more readable code in Racket or Haskell. However I'm willing to give C a try just to learn these lessons that everybody keeps talking.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that I already know most of what is there to know. Can you list some useful lessons that a typical high level code dweller would be oblivious of?

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:20

C is like a portable assembly language. The point of it is to be very near to the hardware, without having to do manual register allocation. If you were to write a kernel for example, you would want to keep the cycle count low and the (non-hardware related) interrupts minimal, hence Haskell would probably be a bad choice; but C would be great for it.
Manual memory management doesn't make you a better coder though, it's just useful for a lot of things.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:23

What you should learn about is cache hierarchy and assembly language.

Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 6:25

Manual memory management doesn't make you a better coder though
It does. By forcing you to think about how much memory you use, and explicitly allocate/free, it gives you better understanding to reason about how you should use memory. You're less likely to do stupid things like making copies of data that weren't needed, or keep around memory that should be freed.

It's easy to see this in code written by ex-Java programmers who have migrated to C++. Object copies and new everywhere.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:44

Is learning C really a must for a programmer?
Nope. There are only two eternal languages: machine code and Lisp.

C/C++/Puthon/Java are required only if you want to deal with the faggots. It is like you have to love buttsex to join gay community.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:49

>>4
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PrematureOptimization

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:52

The most important thing about C is that it works everywhere. Every language has a C API. Every OS and architecture has a C compiler. It's versatile, portable and powerful.

C is to programming langages as English is to natural languages.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:55

>>7
if it is popular, it must be good
kill yourself, cocksucker.

Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 6:55

>>6
Optimisation is never premature.

They just propagate that thought because they can use it as a defense against explaining having to spend more time rewriting/optimising what didn't work out the first time they wrote it, and thus earn more for doing less.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:59

>>8
Well, have fun writing trivial fizz-buzz-esque programs in your toy language.

The rest of us have work to do.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:00

>>8
Lingua franca != popularity argument, hymie.

Shalom!

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:01

>>4

You don't need to learn C for that. Any decent language will quickly develop conventions of what is good practice and bad practice depending on compiler implementation.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:03

>>11
It is. While English is popular, it is ugly and rigid, compared to Slavic languages.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:05

>>10
I'm so happy degenerates like you dont use my language.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:07

>>13
Yeah, but nobody speaks those languages but slavshits.
And nobody wants to talk to them.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:08

>>13
Enjoy your forced ingestion of cyanide.

Back to /int/, ``comrade."

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:11

>>15
who cares?

>>16
Back to /int/, ``comrade."
You're mistaking me with commie Jews, Hymie.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:16

>>17
And then again, the less outside filth speak my language - the better, because language is a scared property of the nation - the consciousness of the nation. That is why I'm scared for Japan, when so many weeaboo niggers strive to learn Japanese.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:19

>>15
I assure you that even some slavshits refuse speaking their native languages. because I'm one of them

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:22

>>19
You're a Jew, Hymie.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:23

Please stop derailing threads or spawning irrelevant threads.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:29

>>17
In my home country, this is Kazan of Russia, jewish student
1. control stuff everything
2. bribingto policeman
3. spit to intelligence when talking, soul smell bad
4. have too much money, many jewish student, armani cloths and versace pants, testoni shoes
5. raping? russian girl because russian girl say jewish boy no thanks, very big nose and greasy
6. very smell of falafels eating by jew
7. very smell of colonization, no leaving long time, sometime 1000 years?
jew=devil same

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:31

>>22
Awful. You should learn you Hebrew and leave for Israel.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:34

>>13

And how is that supposed to help your case? It perfectly illustrates your fallacy. Slavic languages might have better
theoretical grounding but in practice their value compared to English is insignificantly small because nobody uses them for anything significant.

Nobody said that C had the best theoretical grounding but rather that it is supported everywhere.

This is programming we are talking about here. If you can't be pragmatic about things you don't belong here.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:41

>>17
2hymie4me

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:44

>>24
And how is that supposed to help your case? It perfectly illustrates your fallacy. Slavic languages might have better
theoretical grounding but in practice their value compared to English is insignificantly small because nobody uses them for anything significant.
English is easy to learn but hard to use. Slavic languages are hard to learn but easier to use. So yes, nobody will ever use Slavic languages beside Slavs. Of course there languages like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil which are even more flexible than Slavic, but they aint free and you wont get one as a birthright.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:48

>>26
This is awesome.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:05

>>4
Okay, I'll concede that it might make you a better programmer if you're retarded to begin with.

Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 8:08

>>26,27
It's like the APL of natural languages.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:18

>>22
http://0chan.ru/c/src/13465878486831.jpg

is this your photo?

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:29

C a undefined shit

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 10:37

C is a toy language. There's a reason why we use Fortran for serious computing.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 10:47

All programming languages are shit. If someone told me 4channers made them all, I'd have no reason to object.

G'day

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 10:47

>>8
Who the fuck are you quoting?

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 11:29

>>9
Yah Cudder, I bet Knuth's racking in the dough for skipping over rewriting T_E^X in literate assembly.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 13:21

C is the 70's Java, sponsored by Bell labs to fit their programmers. Pascal also has static types, inline asm, pointers and manual memory management, but...

yoonix

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 13:40

>>36
Pascal is fucking shit.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 16:59

>>37
But Ada isn't.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 19:13

>>37
No.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-03 12:12

>>1

you should learn C and write one super fast application that does something non trivial and never calls malloc once. Simulations and 3D physics engines are always a good choice. Allocate all of your dynamic data in global statically allocated memory pools. Do not use any data structure other than arrays and spacial trees. Make minimal use of polymorphism. Try to get the game play as smooth as possible. Finally, once the simulation is finished, introduce a FFI for it from racket and then make complex AIs for it. Sound good?

Is learning C really a must for a programmer?

1 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:17

2 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:20

3 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:23

4 Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 6:25

5 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:44

6 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:49

7 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:52

8 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:55

9 Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 6:55

10 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:59

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29 Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 8:08

30 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:18

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40 Name: Anonymous 2012-09-03 12:12

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:17

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:20

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:23

Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 6:25

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:44

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:49

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:52

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:55

Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 6:55

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 6:59

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Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:11

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:16

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:19

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Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:23

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:29

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:31

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:34

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:41

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:44

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:48

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:05

Name: Cudder !MhMRSATORI!fR8duoqGZdD/iE5 2012-09-02 8:08

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:18

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 8:29

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 10:37

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 10:47

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 10:47

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 11:29

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 13:21

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 13:40

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 16:59

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 19:13

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-03 12:12