Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Catonmat never fails in fascinating me, regardless of how stupid this may sound, the more unpopular the language he implements his tutorial/illustration in, the more I realize how unimportant the language actually is. As long as we can/are reuse/reusing what we write, we can rest in the idea that what we do/did now/before actually matters for what we can/are do/doing in the future/present.


As languages go C may be a lot of things but I don't think you can call it "unpopular".


Indeed. I'm always surprised at the number of people I meet (and, distressingly, the number of posters on this site) that honestly believe that "most" software is written by web geeks or IT droids in scripting languages or Java or .NET.

That, and the fact that this belief persists as they turn off their digital televisions, click their garage door remotes, text a friend on their phone, fire up the engine in their personal vehicle, and drive to work stopping carefully at all the carefully automated traffic lights, swipe their ID card and sit at their desk where they can finally get to see some software.


Quoth a friend of mine who is a computer engineer at GE, "Java doesn't keep the lights on."


Exactly, and ironically a lot of those higher level languages are written in C.


How about passé or gauche or some other fashion term, with perhaps, all the implied connotation?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: