[simion314]

Yes, there are many languages that are safer, including c++ collection can be used safely but you don't see Java/c# devs popping up in a C/C++ related thread mentioning again their favorite language. Btw there are also languages that are safer then Rust and you do not see those people asking to not use Rust, again better tool for the job(where in most of the cases the project is a huge one and is done).

[pjmlp]

How young are you?

I imagine you missed the BBS and USENET flamewars against C.

[simion314]

I have internet access for 10 years.

[pjmlp]

Which means you missed all that BBS and USENET bashing fun.

No, bashing C is a common practice from those of us on the memory safe side of the fence since the early days.

Take the paper "A History of CLU"[0] describing how CLU was designed and implemented in 1975.

"I believe this is a better approach than providing a generally unsafe language like C, or a language with unsafe features, like Mesa [Mitchell, 1978], since it discourages programmers from using the unsafe features casually."

There are tons of other examples, all available in old papers, BBS and USENET archives.

[0] http://publications.csail.mit.edu/lcs/pubs/pdf/MIT-LCS-TR-56...

[simion314]

Thanks, I will read it, so are you of the opinion that there is no job that C is the best tool? Btw I am not a C developer and I would never use C except if I am asked to work on a project that uses C already. I would use C++ with Qt for GUI though.

[pjmlp]

Exactly, C only became widely adopted by the industry thanks to AT&T only being allowed to charge a symbolic price for UNIX and making the source code available to universities.

Which 80's startups like Sun and SGI used as basis for their workstation OSes.

Bjarne created C++, because after having to use BCPL instead of Simula to finish his PhD, he never wanted to work like that ever again.

So C with Classes started as a tool for Bjarne to target C, while staying productive and able to write safer code.