Dennis Ritchie Dead at 70
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Dennis Ritchie Dead at 70
Dennis Ritchie died last week, co-developer of C with Kernighan at Bell, and a close colleague of Ken Thompson with whom he developed the real Unix.
Its already been said that "C is a poster child for why it's essential to keep those people who know a thing can't be done from bothering the people who are doing it."
The NYT did an editorial, and theRegister did an Obituary
IMO Dennis was more important than Jobs, he was also a nicer person (yes, I met both of them, knew Dennis better)
RIP Dennis old mate - god bless and thanks
Its already been said that "C is a poster child for why it's essential to keep those people who know a thing can't be done from bothering the people who are doing it."
The NYT did an editorial, and theRegister did an Obituary
IMO Dennis was more important than Jobs, he was also a nicer person (yes, I met both of them, knew Dennis better)
RIP Dennis old mate - god bless and thanks
Windows 10 Pro (64 bit) version 1809 - Xplorer2 version: Pro 2.5.0.4 [Unicode] x64 2014-06-21
This, while not exactly funny (except with that odd "uncomfortable humour" that geeks seem to endemically suffer from), is perhaps itself just weird enough to qualify.Tuxman wrote:What jokes would even be possible here?
I just didn't "get it"... it's not funny, nor particularly clever - makes for an odd memorial, if that was the intent.
Being one who "grew up" on C (then went walkabout for 2 decades while the world passed me by, thankfully), I never fully understood why people kept inventing languages which (at the end of the day) were nothing more than "interpreted" C re-lexified anyway. Once upon a time I was forced to learn COBOL (yes, this was a long time ago) by a particularly idiotic professor who thought it would be useful for me to learn an "applied" language instead of an abstracted (non-purpose-specific) one. He was wrong. I learned it, dismissed it, and promptly dropped his class.
Then again, when I was in school everyone was suggesting that the curriculum should replace Latin with Japanese (as they were pegged to be "the new economic superpower" at the time, as if that was important). Now they say Chinese, and it's funny how I always think of Pascal when they say that. No reason in particular - other than that it always seemed like such an unhappy language once C took over, the tears of Delphi notwithstanding.
Being one who "grew up" on C (then went walkabout for 2 decades while the world passed me by, thankfully), I never fully understood why people kept inventing languages which (at the end of the day) were nothing more than "interpreted" C re-lexified anyway. Once upon a time I was forced to learn COBOL (yes, this was a long time ago) by a particularly idiotic professor who thought it would be useful for me to learn an "applied" language instead of an abstracted (non-purpose-specific) one. He was wrong. I learned it, dismissed it, and promptly dropped his class.
Then again, when I was in school everyone was suggesting that the curriculum should replace Latin with Japanese (as they were pegged to be "the new economic superpower" at the time, as if that was important). Now they say Chinese, and it's funny how I always think of Pascal when they say that. No reason in particular - other than that it always seemed like such an unhappy language once C took over, the tears of Delphi notwithstanding.
When curriculae are subject to whatever propaganda is popular that year (buzz-words like "cross-platform" and "device-scaling"), the people who randomly make decisions about what is to be taught inevitably follow the trend, regardless of the actual value of what is taught. As ever in organised education, the object is to create economically obedient and productive automatons - the question of actual value is never considered, so long as the Gods named Immediate Convenience and Immediately Useful are given their ritual human sacrifices.Tuxman wrote:But their curricula prefer Java for whatever reason.
One of these days people'll figure out that the convenience of the JIT paradigm (yes, I know that's not what Java calls it, but it amounts to the same thing) becomes a myth when those to whom it was taught skipped the whole chapter entitled Fundamentals as they were in too much of a hurry to "get to the good stuff".
Programming pseudo-knowledge these days is a commodity like any other, and as long as it continues to make money, no one will notice that something's missing in these kids.
Which, we will note, has been the generational complaint of the Journeyman ever since the industrial revolution starting revolving back in the 19th century.
- FrizzleFry
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During my studies I currently learn something about Android development. They are written in some Java dialect indeed. Interestingly, the core system is still mostly C/C++.
I wonder if it would not be much easier just to use C/C++ instead of a dedicated JVM.
I wonder if it would not be much easier just to use C/C++ instead of a dedicated JVM.
Tux. ; tuxproject.de
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- FrizzleFry
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C(++) applications are platform-independent to, you'll just have to recompile them. Sometimes. Also, I can't see how Java is easier. Sure, people's preferred Java IDE (eclipse) writes half the code for you. That does not make the language easier, it only allows people to know less about their language when they write something in it. Meh.
Tux. ; tuxproject.de
registered xplorer² pro user since Oct 2009, ultimated in Mar 2012
registered xplorer² pro user since Oct 2009, ultimated in Mar 2012
"Sometimes" is the operative term there - and not very often is the response ("Does this work on WINE?"). Platform independent is supposed to mean form factoring, etc, when it comes to hardware (not explicitly phones), so if you automatically have the Java environment, you only need to know rudimentary things about the hardware API, and barely that.Tuxman wrote:C(++) applications are platform-independent to, you'll just have to recompile them. Sometimes.
Java is far easier - it shares a similar syntax so people assume it's similar underneath, but it's nothing of the sort - basically there's no memory management, no "real" pointer manipulation (meaning addressing; just superficial stuff for objects) and it's devoid of elegance because (as you say) it assumes so much.Tuxman wrote:Also, I can't see how Java is easier.
The problem I have with it is not that it's not useful for what it's intended for (FrizzleFry's right: "best tool for the job" philosophy) - it's that the kids who learn it now are never exposed to a real programming language - it's the equivalent of white-bread... goes with everything, has no depth, and people who don't know any better assume it's what makes the world run. They often don't even know that the JRE is written in C, which is rather laughable. Idiot-proofing a language cannot improve it, it can only dumb-it-down, and thus dumb-down its users in the end.