Why the C Programming Language Sucks

The C language 'sucks' because you don't understand how a computer really works. Colleges should stop teaching Java and replace it with C/C++ because so few actually understand the low level inner workings of computers these days.

WTF? You're moaning, that the systems programming language invented over 40 years ago has no means for automatic memory allocation management and high level abstractions. Sorry but this is just crappy post.

OTOH C was invented because these exact same problems were being raised about assembly languages, and C addressed them with types and structures (which are, after all, abstractions to help the programmer allocate and manage resources).

And, before that, the assembly languages were addressing that problem with machine code.

No doubt in 10 years (whom am I kidding -- 10 months) whatever replaces Javascript will make the same complaints about it that this does about C.

Personally I find C pretty elegant for what it is, and it's the only thing I would use for serial comm programming, and since that's what I do mostly...

The biggest error the author makes isn't even stated explicitly. It's the underlying assumption that there's no reason not to have the language do this resource management for you. As we all know, however, automatic garbage collection does involve significant performance and predictability tradeoffs. Often, these tradeoffs need to be made differently for different kinds of code. A critique of C's design within its own problem domain (like stonewhite's in this thread) might be valuable, but a whine that treats all programming as the same is almost completely worthless.

I think it's a question of what you're using C for.

C is an abstraction of a system. It has memory, file handles, and other things that a system has. That's why people write OSes in C. When you're writing an OS, what are you doing other than managing a resource? The 1/2/3 are necessary when they are the whole point of the language.

Of course it sucks to write something like a website in C when you can use a high level language like Python which has libraries containing plausible abstractions for web pages.

Another "Language X sucks because it's missing features I think are important" post...

But really, bashing C shows a complete lack of understanding of the history of computing. I wouldn't be surprised to find another post expounding on just how horrible assembly is.

I think the proper rant would be about ambiguous spec which leads to strange outputs from different compilers, then results in very hacky ways to provide even some level of portability.

It may not provide enough abstractions to match your awesome Ruby on Rails application for your next great startup but that is OK. Lets try to remember that C was invented to avoid writing Unix in assembly, which all previous OS'es were written in. So abstraction-wise it supplies enough abstraction for its time and usage.

This article is basically a complaint that low level language does not support features of higher level languages. If you don't need manual resource management and you are working on web/desktop software - don't use C, there are better suited, high level, modern languages for that. But as an embedded programmer, I giggle every time I read that "C is dead/sucks".

Yes, this is one of real reasons C sucks. C+RAII+Exceptions+Templates would be great, but C++ also adds a lot of other stuff unfortunately. You could use Rust, but that has a very different spirit [0] than C.

[0] http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/spirit_of_c.html

In 2015 I am getting paid to write thousands of lines of extremely efficient, extremely reliable embedded software in C. From my perspective it's a great language and I'm very, very good at it by now, having used written a lot of C since 1985 or so, when I first started to learn the language.

I do know other languages. I have used professionally, Perl, Python, Ruby, Scheme, Java, Objective-C, Lisp, Dylan, and others. I have been teaching myself Haskell in my bits of spare time for years now. I would love to be able to write some of these algorithms in my embedded work in Haskell, or an EDSL, and I think that is possible, but the fact remains that a lot of programming in the embedded space is all about managing state, and managing peripherals, which involves a lot of interrupt handlers, very low-level programming with event queues and tasks, and often a minimal OS (I'm using FreeRTOS right now) or, often, no OS at all (as in some code I've written professionally for Arduino boards and low-end Atmel microprocessors).

I am perfectly aware of C's imperfections and weak type systems, many of the safety pitfalls involved in working directly with machine words and pointers, and the relative lack of checking that most compilers do for you (compilers will often be perfectly happy to compile code that will mix signed and unsigned types in unsafe ways, or do widening or narrowing in unsafe ways, due to C's rather baroque rules for integral promotion and things like that). The partial equivalence (or, one might better say, automatic conversion under certain circumstances) between arrays and pointers is a source of endless confusion to newbies and the details of just how it works are a source of difficulty even to many experienced programmers. But after 30 years programming in C and 40 years programming altogether I can bang that shit out and make it readable and write good comments explaining what I am doing and very often my shit runs properly on the first try.

So from my perspective C is a great language. It has been the backbone of my whole career, although in truth I would love to do a lot more with Haskell.

C++ by comparison, which I've also used professionally, a lot -- does not even feel like language these days, but more some kind of endless, nightmarish research project where the best approach is to make sure you are not coming anywhere near the cutting edge.

The main reason C sucks is because it's the lingua franca for Real Systems Programming, and is therefore unavoidable.

Had Pascal filled the role, we'd have long posts about Why the Pascal Programming Language Sucks. You know, aside from the one Brian Kernighan wrote.

Answer: because you haven't spend enough time learning it.

Is there a goto in there? Tut.