Name: Anonymous 2013-09-07 16:38
When is it appropriate to use a high level programming language? Personally, I always feel guilty when using anything except C.
Many serious pieces of software, a lot of software to create a supportive environment for further abstracted software is implemented with C.That's why programming sucks. It's always the C parts that make software buggy and exploitable. If the OS language was better, we wouldn't need so many scripting languages in the first place.
Because the founders of modern computing made it that way.The C (and Unix) founders are not the founders of modern computing. Pretty much everything was poorly copied from Multics. They worked on Multics too, but Unix is like Multics: the bad parts or --Multics (decrement and return less value than before). That's why it's called Unix, as a pun on Multics and Eunuchs.
Are you unhappy with this? Is their work garbage?Everything based on C is garbage. The world would be a better place if C never existed. If Microsoft didn't pick C for writing Windows, you wouldn't even be having this discussion. C would be a dead language used only by Plan 9 and BSD hobbyists. Unix was dying in the 90s anyway and would be completely gone if not for GNU/Linux.
Undefined behavior could very well be what makes C great.Crime could very well be what makes the ghetto great. People choose to live there because of the crime. People choose to use C-based operating systems because of the bugs.
Obviously I am a C programmer, and I enjoy C, I also think C is beautiful.If you're smarter than Dennis Ritchie, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Theo De Raadt, Brian Kernighan, Rob Pike, and everyone else who ever used C, then you might be able to write C, otherwise you're just a poseur. These people can't write safe programs in C, but you think you can?