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Comment by typon | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand C programmers are their seemingly utter inability to understand that C is actually not perfect and has tons of flaws, including a lot of complexity. Just because you're used to something doesn't make that thing not complex. Try teaching C to first year undergrads.

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I don't understand non-C programmers and their seeming utter inability to understand that C programmers are very aware of C imperfections and how to effectively deal with it, while being equally blind to the flaws and complexity in their own environments.

I learned C as a first year undergrad.

I'm a final year undergrad and all my courses have used C except for the funcprog and OOP courses which used haskell and Java respectively.

I've even been a teaching assistant for the very first programming course students take, so I have taught C to first year undergrads!

I feel like undergrads learn C in their first year? Or at least I did (well I already knew it, but had a class that was in C).

I don't think C is the standard anymore. I'm graduating class of 2022 and my college taught Java to freshmen. My friends at different colleges mostly had the same experience, with a few using Python or C++

This definitely varies by university. I had haskell and C on my first year, only had Java on the second.

On my university we learned C++, already with proper strings, vectors, in-house collection library.

About 30 years ago.

C the language is really neat and exciting. C the ecosystem, including standard libraries, is a lot less compelling.

I do (well to apprentices who are the same age and same level) I teach about 2 hours a week on c++ and they are fine. They pass the cpp institute exams (which are super hard!)

So unless you actually DO teach then don't assume :)

Have taught first year undergrads. Highly recommended experience: 5 stars.

C definitely has many flaws, but I wouldn't say complexity is one of them. I wulld rather say it's too simple and one has to add the complexity all by themselves :D

Learned C in a class as a first year undergrad, it was great!

C was my first language as a first year undergrad, in mechanical engineering to boot. I think I came out of the experience just fine.

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