[H-GEN] C programming idioms

[Andrae Muys]

On 19/02/2007, at 3:34 PM, Russell Stuart wrote:

> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug  
> and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will  
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>
> On Mon, 2007-02-19 at 15:21 +1000, Greg Black wrote:
>> I am also fond of the various Programming Pearls books by Bentley,  
>> but
>> again I don't think they are part of the answer to the original
>> question.  Back when the articles they were constructed from were
>> written for CACM in the early 1980's, the world was quite different.
>> Hardware was very costly and not very powerful.  Programmers were  
>> very
>> cheap and considered their time should be spent getting the best  
>> out of
>> the limited hardware.
>>
>> Today, hardware is more or less free.  Programmers are relatively  
>> costly
>> and need to be as effective as they can in a limited time frame.
>
> I am perhaps stepping where angles fear to tread,
> But if you are programming in a world where
> programmers are expensive and machine time is
> free, then you probably shouldn't be using C.

That's not entirely true - someone has to write the OS / Compiler /  
VM / etc - and for these tasks C remains the normal choice.  It is  
possible there are better languages for the job, and almost certain  
that there could be - but there's no existence proof of such a beast  
as of yet.

And regardless, C is the lingua franca of systems programming and  
therefore necessary to learn and master for anyone thinking of doing  
that sort of work.

What Greg fails to consider is that embedded systems / consumer  
electronics applications remain an area where many of Bentley's  
pearls still apply, so the books remain more than historical  
curiosities.

Andrae

-- 
Andrae Muys
andrae at netymon.com
Principal Mulgara Consultant
Netymon Pty Ltd