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Comment by kartan | Hacker News Reader

> BASIC, the Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

I think that BASIC has been replaced by JavaScript. The lack of typing and the immediate feedback match the same uses.

> PASCAL was invented in the late 1960's by Prof. Niklaus Wirth of Zurich as a tool to teach students proper programming structure before their brains became hopelessly warped by Basic.

Java fits this niche. It introduces typing and object oriented programming in a very structured way making it good for teaching. And it has not the hardness of C++.

> C is a terse, elegant, deceptively simple language that allows programmers almost unlimited flexibility.

C is being replaced by C++. But, without an ABI, C++ is not a complete replacement. So, C still goes strong for interfacing with the OS.

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I don't think I'd describe C++ either "terse" or "deceptively simple"

You are right. C++ does some of the opposite trade-off that C does.

C++ is good for speed, good mapping with hardware features and fine tuned memory management. There is a replacement for C. But, it chooses to add complexity to the language to facilitate memory management, expressiveness and other perks. So, in that regard is the opposite that C.

I think people who have been using c for the last 15 years and haven't started using c++ for a given application are unlikely to ever start using c++, so it's not really a replacement. Additionally c++ keeps piling on complexity, so I suspect adoption is going to slow; C will likely outlast, not be replaced by, c++, since it's use as the foundation for operating system kernels and vms is going to be hard to assail, not to mention it's use in native function interfaces.

That is true for UNIX based OSes, thankfully those aren't the only ones around.

We use C++ (17) to program an embedded POWER processor with 16kB of scratch pad memory and a custom vector extension. The compile time features of c++ alone (templates, constexpr) and lambda, namespaces, typed enums alone make it much safer and better than C.

No doubt. What's the median age of the new developers that you hire? Do you think that's sustainable over the next 20 years for your ecosystem?

Well, "better" is a loaded word, and you need to remember that C++ is not a superset of C. The two languages intersect in a fairly large subset of C, but there are parts of C++ that are not the same. I would claim that C++ is remarkably less safe than C because of the crazy games some people play with what's laughingly called "template meta-programming." You can abuse the C preprocessor, but not to the extent that its C++ mode permits.

That aside, the comparison of programming languages to automobiles still holds: C is a Formula One race car without seatbelts. C++ now resembles Ada in terms of size to the extent that it's a large staff car that comes in only one color. Java, which originally seemed to be a sane C++, is sort of like my father's Buick -- it looks nice but when you really need to do something slightly out of the ordinary like carry skis you can't do it without an accessory. That's right, it is a proprietary language (hence C#)

> C++ is not a superset of C

C++ contains a subset which is a dialect of C that is so compatible with C (in particular C90) that you can write code in it that compiles as C, and with very little effort. (Which I know from extensive personal experience, not just theory).

(Such code benefits from the extra checks and diagnostics C++ provide; and with some #ifdef switching and macros, it can take advantage of some additional C++ diagnostic fatures when being compiled as C++.)

Quotes from Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ FAQ:

"Well written C tends to be legal C++ also."

"It is not uncommon to be able to convert tens of thousands of lines of ANSI C to C-style C++ in a few hours. "

> C++ is remarkably less safe than C

C++ does add some unsafe features that don't exist in C.

In C++, it is possible to convert a

  foo *

to a

  bar *

without a cast, and without a diagnostic, where foo and bar are different struct types. C doesn't permit this.

Specifically, C++ allows this in the situation when foo is derived from bar by inheritance, a relationship that doesn't exist in C.

Subsequently, pointer arithmetic is allowed on the converted pointer. the bar pointer can be displaced by 1. But the underlying array is of foo objects; it's the wrong size.

Sure, but also C++98 wasn't even out yet ... so you have to lob off the past 5 language extensions for a true analysis.

I would not say JavaScript is anything like Basic - Python might be a better analogy now.

I would say the main thing that basic had going for it is that everyone seemed to have it on their desktop.

In that sense, Javascript is a worth heir because it is right there in everyone's browser.

I think BASIC felt simple because you got used to it but, when it came down to it, was it really that much "simpler" than Pascal or C?

The environment similarities of javascript and Basic are important to note. If I started up an Apple X (without a disk), I would have access to an environment where I could run code. Javascript is accessible from my (ubiquitous) browser today. This seems to be an important factor in first language selection.

The symbols used in javascript () {} [] and spreading it among multiple files are are a major cognitive barrier. Basic was barely approachable by non-techies because it seemed closer to a word processor, at a glance. PHP, ironically, was more similar to Basic if you knew something about FTP and weren't scared of lots and lots of dollar symbols.

GET PYTHON ON THE BROWSER and it will become the first language for at least a generation.

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