[koakuma-chan]

> C has DECADES of high quality teaching material in form of books, university courses, plenty of which is freely available with a bit of searching.

Which means all that high quality teaching material is DECADES old. Rust development is centralised and therefore the docs are always up-to-date, unlike C/C++ which is a big big mess.

[ryao]

Being decades old does not make it out of date. Until a few years ago, the Linux kernel was written using C89. While it has switched to C11, the changes are fairly small such that a book on C89 is still useful. Many projects still write code against older C versions, and the C compiler supports specifying older C versions.

This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version.

[koakuma-chan]

> This is very different than Rust where every new version is abandonware after 6 weeks and the compiler does not let you specify that your code is from a specific version.

Do you have any specific evidence? Rust ecosystem is known for libraries that sit on crates.io for years with no updates but they are still perfectly usable (backward-compatible) and popular. Projects usually specify their MSRV (minimum supported Rust version) in the README.

[ryao]

https://endoflife.date/rust

[koakuma-chan]

Are you asking for LTS releases? https://ferrocene.dev/en/

[ryao]

I was not asking for that. I was answering your question. You asked for evidence of rust releases being abandonware. I gave it to you. Someone else trying to ameliorate Rust releases does not change this reality.

[koakuma-chan]

Well “abandonware” is a strange way to call that because nothing is actually abandoned.

[koakuma-chan]

> Being decades old does not make it out of date.

Right, the docs never get out of date if the thing they document never changes. Can you say the same about C++ though? I’ve heard they release new versions every now and then. My robotics teacher didn’t know ‘auto’ is a thing for example.

[ryao]

Both C and C++ release new versions. The compilers continue to support the old versions and people continue using the old versions (less so in the case of C++). Rust’s compiler drops the old version every time it has a new release.

There is no `-std=1.85` in rust 1.86. You do get `-std=c++98` in both g++ and clang++. A book on C or C++ is still useful even decades later since the version of C or C++ described does not become abandonware at some well defined point after release, unlike Rust releases.

[koakuma-chan]

I'm confused. Rust uses semantic versioning:

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

    MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes
    MINOR version when you add functionality in a backward compatible manner
    PATCH version when you make backward compatible bug fixes

Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

What kind of versioning scheme does C/C++ use?

[ryao]

C and C++ are two different languages. They are versioned by years. Rust technically does not have versions. The rust tools have versions. Basically all versions of C are binary compatible with each other. I suggest you actually learn and use C rather than asking questions since you are never going to ask the right things to understand how it works without having firsthand experience.

[koakuma-chan]

> C and C++ are two different languages. They are versioned by years.

That sounds like Rust editions.

[jpc0]

Auto as it is now has been in C++ since C++11, thats more than a decade ago...

If your argument was C then sure thats a C23 feature (well the type inference type of auto ) and is reasonably new.

This is much more a reflection on youe professor than the language. C++11 was a fundamental change to the language, anyone teaching or using C++ in 2025 should have an understanding of how to to program well in a 14 year old version of said language...

[koakuma-chan]

> Auto as it is now has been in C++ since C++11, thats more than a decade ago...

> anyone teaching or using C++ in 2025 should have an understanding of how to to program well in a 14 year old version of said language...

If the current year is 2025 then 14 years ago is 2011 which is not that long ago.

> If your argument was C then sure thats a C23 feature (well the type inference type of auto ) and is reasonably new.

Grandparent comment is arguing that Linux was written in C89 until a few days ago so decades old books on C aren't actually outdated.

[jpc0]

Decades ols books in C most certainly is even useful in modern C++23 because you need to interact with other libraries written in C89.

When a lot of modern CS concepts wwre first discovered and studied in the 70s, there's no point arguing that old books are useless. Honestly there may be sections of old books that are useless but in the whole they are still useful.

[koakuma-chan]

We're talking about learning C/C++ from scratch which makes no sense to do by using a decades old book because it wouldn't teach you any modern features. Also we're not talking about computer science.

[nickpsecurity]

A long time ago, Victor Yodaiken told me the best way to learn C was the old, K&R book. The explanations, examples, and even pitfalls were all explained well. My code worked without much fuss. That's probably because C hasn't changed much.

I ended up switching to Python for job requirements after getting through half the book. If I re-learn C, I'll go back to it. If it were C++, that would be a totally, different story since they kept piling features on over time.

[cynical_german]

Oh my... Are you serious? I'm almost triggered by this. A book about algorithms or data structures from 20 years ago has nothing more to teach? 3D game engine design from 20 years ago has nothing more to teach? No point in looking at the source code of Quake, reading k&r, and Knuth's TAOCP Volume 1 was published in 1968 so it's obviously irrelevant garbage!

I could spurr into an essay of what kind of lack of understanding you just portrayed about the world, but I won't.... I won't...

[koakuma-chan]

We’re talking about C/C++, not algorithms or data structures.

[jpc0]

How you implement algorithms and data structures in C++/rust is semantics at best. The imperative shell of those languages are identical semantically right down to the memory model.

[koakuma-chan]

Right, that's why a 20 year old book on algorithms and data structures is not necessarily outdated, but a 20 year old book on C/C++ most certainly is.

[ryao]

My copy of The C++ Programming Language for C++98 is still useful today, as is copy of The C Programming Language for C89. The idea that these books are no longer useful is absurd. Modern compilers still support those versions and the new versions are largely extensions of the old (although C++11 changed some standard library definitions). The only way you could think this is if you have zero knowledge of these languages.

[koakuma-chan]

> The only way you could think this is if you have zero knowledge of these languages.

Exactly. For context see my original comment above about C/C++ books being paid.