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by sam4ritan 3599 days ago
This makes a whol lot of good points. C is really not suited for most modern applications, and some of its design choices are questionable (to say the least).

On the other hand: In my opinion, C is a good language to show beginning programmers how memory management is done. Basically, it could be a third learned language, after a scrip language (like python) and an OOP language (Java or C++).
2 comments
dalke 3599 days ago
It's hard to figure out which are the good points and which are hyperbole. "EDSAC was the second electronic digital stored-program computer to go into regular service" and with "the world's first assembler" dating from 1949, says the Wikipedia reference. As such, many languages can be traced back to that "Most Godawful Computer on Earth (TM)".

Or, "4. ALGOL60 [4] had many nice features of languages today but was too theoretical: only existed on paper." Yet its reference 4, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL_60#ALGOL_60_implementati... , lists a number of ALGOL60 implementations even in the 1960s.

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nickpsecurity 3599 days ago
Hyperbole and reference will probably be worked on in next one. ALGOL mostly existed on paper or in complex compilers on expensive systems. The "computer" that is the EDSAC is not on that list. So, they would have to build their own ALGOL... a difficult thing anyway in that period... using a machine and process like this:

https://youtu.be/6v4Juzn10gM?t=3m41s

Can you imagine trying to make a robust, fast compiler for such a weak machine in tape batches on that weak machine? I could understand them giving up with BCPL as a useful result on that machine. The cost-benefit analysis of using a PDP-11 like an EDSAC is opposite. Wirth et al showed you could do better. C inventors just liked BCPL. I'd understand if they used BCPL to bootstrap a Modula-2 or other ALGOL subset with good design. Instead, they kept trying to force BCPL to do something it wasn't designed for... wait, it wasn't designed period lol. It was just what compiled on a 1940's calculating device.

It's bad foundations vs others' good foundations. Might have worked for them sure. Today, though, we need to know why they did it that way and why we definitely shouldn't if we don't absolutely have to. That's the point of the essay. Plus, to clear up associated misinformation.

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dllthomas 3599 days ago
Algol60 could never be taken seriously as a mainstream language, lacking Algol-like syntax.
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AnimalMuppet 3599 days ago
Algol60 lacked Algol-like syntax?

In one sense, that's almost tautologically impossible. I presume you mean "like the other Algols", which makes it a non-absurd statement, but... could you expand or clarify what you mean here?

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dalke 3599 days ago
I believe it's a joke. Gold isn't a gold-like substance because it is gold. Algol isn't an Algol-like language because it's Algol.

If so, I don't believe it's a good joke.

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dllthomas 3599 days ago
It's a joke, but not the one you thought.

The joke is that the syntax of Algol didn't actually look all that much like what people mean when they say "Algol-like syntax". No curly braces anywhere to be seen.

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dalke 3599 days ago
As my introduction to Algol-like languages was through Pascal, the joke completely passed me by.
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moron4hire 3599 days ago
It's often said that you won't be a programmer until you understand pointers, but my own experience was the other way around: I didn't understand pointers until after I had been programming in languages like C# and Java for a long time.

I had first started out in C, hacked around for a while, even made a few simple programs. But I wasn't ever able to get very far with it. My first Java app had me doing GUI programming right away and I was making things a lot faster than I could have ever done in C.

The problem was, there are two things a beginner needs to learn: how to solve problems with programming, and the particular programming language they are using. So I think it's best to keep one of those things very, very simple. And you tend to lose a lot of people from boredom if that thing is the types of problems you're solving. So we have to default to the language being simple.

Pointers and memory management are an implementation detail. They are important, but they aren't the job. The job is fulfilling requirements. Some days the requirements might be "fit inside this tiny box of memory", but it's far more likely to be "so, like, when I click on the link, the screen flickers. <you mean a new page loads?> Yeah, whatever, just make it stop flickering."

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