[TUHS] Is C obsolete? (was Re: [tuhs] The Unix shell: a 50-year view)

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 10:36:46PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > We both love C, we are both disciplined enough to write
> > maintainable/extendable code in C, it works for us.  We really clicked
> > over our love of C.
> 
> Are you really sure that all the C code the two of you have written in your
> careers carefully avoids all 191 kinds of undefined behavior in C99 (the
> number has grown since then)?  Give me leave to doubt it.

I'm sure there are all sorts of problems with C.  Somehow we both never
encountered them.

My experience is that people come up with this or that, and they are
right, there is a there there, but Eric and I, he more than me, we just
wrote a ton of code in C, like 3-4 decades, all of that code works and
works better than the people who second guess us.  Our code works.

I've been through coverity trying to tell us where the problems were,
they found none.  I've been through Intel's fancy compiler that would
make things faster, it was a .1-.5%.  I don't remember, it was nothing.

I'm good with my understanding of C.  I get that you get it at a more
detailed level, go you.  I get it at a more basic practical level and
that has served me well.