C _looks_ simple, deceivingly so. As soon as you need to deal with a large project in a corporate environment on a code base aged in double digit years you don't think it's simple anymore. C is incredibly complex, unmanageably so.
But, I’m not arguing with you. I honestly think that any corporate codebase after double digit years (and seven figure LoC) turns into a completely unmanageable mess. If it isn’t, it’s because of the team culture and pure rigor. Not the language
I don't limit my statement to just C. The topic was C however so I mentioned C.
I’ve worked in a lot of massive and unmaintainable codebases, and I’ve always had the most fun untangling C ones. I don’t know exactly why, but I suspect it’s because at their core they are always plain ol’ simple C.
Your comment reads like a red herring though. You're not actually trying to argue that C makes thing easier or hard. Your red herring only means that hard problems affecting all languages aren't magically turned into non-issues in C. You can still write a C program that uses threading and is as safe as any other language and end up being a far simpler project, but that means nothing because the subject is still hard. And what would that actually say about C, let alone refute?
Writing C is simple.
Writing multithreaded programs is difficult and C doesn't help you with it.
Let's not argue about religions online. The mullahs will arrest us for improper use of void.
I've done this before, never felt like C wasn't simple.
I think your main argument here is that large C code bases can easily become unwieldy, and I agree with you on that. However, simple multithreading in C is simple. It's not a terribly difficult problem to solve.
Sharpened rock is a simple tool. Versatile too, but try using it to make a sculpture and it's going to be hard, very hard. Especially if you never used it extensively.
C is a simple language. No doubt about it. But doing multi-threading and memory safety in C is like trying to build a 100m tall structure using nothing but a sharpened rock. Possible but, why would you.
Java is a complex language. Lots of complexity. Classes, annotations, async, System.out and so on. But multi-threaded and memory safe (memory leaks allowed ofc) programs is as simple as just not using Java's array of unsafe tooling.
> But multi-threaded and memory safe (memory leaks allowed ofc) programs is as simple as just not using Java's array of unsafe tooling.
as _easy_ as just not...
"Complex" is the opposite of "simple". "Easy" is the opposite of "hard".
I could port most of the multiprocessing based python scripts I have lying around to C without a problem. Multithreading can be easy when you have a few rules in place what threads can read/modify data at a specific point in time.
In a corporate environment, just use Java or C# or whatever. It's a corporate environment, probably not that interesting. C is not necessary.
Even modern drivers for Apple, Google and Microsoft platforms are written in C++.
Mind expanding on that?