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0 pointsgritzko11h ago0 comments

That is the entire point, yes. Reasoning about layers of completely imaginary entities is what demotivates me about C++ and Rust. Meanwhile, hardware bits are very real (and getting more expensive recently). Having implemented slices and generics in C, now C++ feels like Vietnam flashbacks.

https://replicated.wiki/blog/abc

0 comments

pjmlp11h ago

Yet C23 isn't K&R C any longer, nor is the hardware a PDP 11.

Also when we eventually start talking to agents that perform the whole execution steps by themselves, that is kind of irrelevant.

Except for the lucky ones that still code to keep the infrastructure going, which is mostly C++.

flohofwoe8h ago

The PDP-11 myth is getting a bit tired by now ;)

If C would be so hardwired to the PDP-11 architecture it would have died with it. In reality C works just fine on all sorts of hardware (like GPUs) with only minor extensions.

pjmlp5h ago

Just like plenty of other programming languages.

I am also tired that language extensions in C to work around ISO defencies is considered an advantage when argued by C folks, while at the same time it is considered a language design fault when the same crowd points to other programming languages.

uecker10h ago

The "nor is the hardware a PDP 11". Byte access was the main new feature of the PDP 11 that C adopted. Are you saying being able to access individual bytes is not relevant on modern hardware?

shakna10h ago

Might more mean that we've standardised on a few things like what a byte even is.

The PDP-11 had both 8 and 9-bit bytes. Thats a complexity that few programmers have to touch on, today.

1 more reply

pjmlp5h ago

It is, however hardly something unique to C, as the C crowd pretends it to be.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

pjmlp11h ago

Yet C23 isn't K&R C any longer, nor is the hardware a PDP 11.

Also when we eventually start talking to agents that perform the whole execution steps by themselves, that is kind of irrelevant.

Except for the lucky ones that still code to keep the infrastructure going, which is mostly C++.

flohofwoe8h ago

The PDP-11 myth is getting a bit tired by now ;)

If C would be so hardwired to the PDP-11 architecture it would have died with it. In reality C works just fine on all sorts of hardware (like GPUs) with only minor extensions.

pjmlp5h ago

Just like plenty of other programming languages.

uecker10h ago

The "nor is the hardware a PDP 11". Byte access was the main new feature of the PDP 11 that C adopted. Are you saying being able to access individual bytes is not relevant on modern hardware?

shakna10h ago

Might more mean that we've standardised on a few things like what a byte even is.

The PDP-11 had both 8 and 9-bit bytes. Thats a complexity that few programmers have to touch on, today.

1 more reply

pjmlp5h ago

It is, however hardly something unique to C, as the C crowd pretends it to be.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse