The Problem with C (2020)

C is the glue interface that connects all the different languages together. I wouldn&#x27;t want to see anything new added to the language that complicates this lingua franca.<p>I liked C in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. It was a neat and simple language, but that changed as compilers got more aggressive with their optimizations and exposed just how complicated and unintuitive the spec actually is (and the impossibility of avoiding UB). C was a good learning experience for language committees (as was C++), but it&#x27;s time to cut our losses and move on.<p>I also liked C++ in the 90s, but soon grew to despise it. When they tried to revamp it and make it safer to use, I was hopeful, but that&#x27;s now gone. It&#x27;s too complicated, the error messaging sucks, and there are too many different ways to do the same thing (with ever changing best practices). In a way, CMake and C++ are two peas in a pod.<p>This is why I now pin my hopes on rust and zig. I want to write low level code, but not in C or C++. I want a build system that&#x27;s not Makefiles, CMake, or (shudder) gradle.

&gt; &gt; There Are No C Conferences. Maybe that’s why the C++ committee is now over 10 times the size of the C committee.<p>I have this controversial thought: C people understood one thing before everyone else (including the creators of C++, Rust, and any other language), and is this:<p>“Perfection is Achieved Not When There Is Nothing More to Add, But When There Is Nothing Left to Take Away” -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery.<p>Super-bloated languages that keep adding features every month&#x2F;year are far from perfection.<p>Now bring it on!<p>Note: I love both C and C++. I prefer C because it&#x27;s simpler (I write firmware for a living). Sometimes I use C++ with simple classes and I might throw in a template or two if I am in a good day. Of course my classes are for my use only: don&#x27;t try to copy&#x2F;move them!! I won&#x27;t chase every little nitpick of deleting and overriding every operator&#x2F;constructor!! And the further I might go is implementing a Singleton.

I stick to lean and simple C89 with benign bits of c99&#x2F;c11. With nice tables of functions and clever recursive pre-processor naming, you can scale that easily to large modular applications and keep everything very clean. The absolute and unquestionable truth: a c++ compiler is abysmally more complex and hard to write than a C (89 with benign bits of c99&#x2F;c11) compiler, and this is mecanically true due to the syntax complexity difference. There are many shmol and cute alternatives C compilers out there (and there are working better each day which goes by, and some are doing more than enough optimizations), and I would like to use them, that which is not possible with c++, due to its complexity hence shuting the door hard on any reasonable efforts of writing a &quot;working&quot; alternative. That said, personnaly, I have high hopes (maybe too high) if RISC-V is successful: I see everything assembly (not even C anymore) with high level script languages of the like of python&#x2F;javascript&#x2F;lua&#x2F;etc. I am writting more and more assembly these days (mostly x86_64 though, desktop RISC-V are only starting to ramp up in performance), and the main pitfall seems to be the abuse of the macro language of the assembler, which could be averted if explicitely aware of this bias.

If I&#x27;m writing C++, I am doing it because I need nanosecond latency (and the delicious language libraries). If I only need microsecond latency, I would use Golang. If millisecond is fine, it&#x27;d be Python in a hot minute.<p>If I only need (as is 99% of the time the case) a smidge of code to run nanosecond-fast, I&#x27;d write a C extension and call it from a higher-level language that does the orchestration code. The C extension would by definition be simple code, so there is no real problem with C as such - it&#x27;s ideally suited for that role.<p>Only in the rare case that a large program needs to be nanosecond-fast would I even consider C++ (and I&#x27;d push really hard to learn if that really needed to be true!), and then I&#x27;d write code like it was 2003 - smart pointers and POD classes, but that&#x27;s it. The new libraries are wonderful for saving code and getting good fast implementation of algos!

As a long-time C aficionado, part-time wanna-be language-lawyer, and just general supporter and fan, the fact that there is no C conference was interesting. I guess I knew that, because if there was such a conference I would have known, at least I would like to think that. On the other hand I&#x27;ve never been to a programming language conference (probably self-fulfilling by being primarily a C programmer at heart) so it&#x27;s not &quot;a thing&quot; for me.<p>Anyway, some things I think would make for interesting content at such a conference, should one decide to exist:<p><i>Modern C</i>. It would be useful with practical down-to-earth comparison between C the way (I feel) many think it &quot;should&quot; be written, i.e. C89-style with lots of worry that the compiler may be broken, and something more modern&#x2F;sensible.<p><i>Standard directions</i>. Some kind of survey-style talk trying to both summarize known interests covered by the committe now, and also perhaps polling the audience for input about where C needs to go.<p><i>Compiler architect&#x27;s thoughts</i>. Get the major compiler writers in a panel, have them talk about how various language (mis)features affect their ability to write good compilers, and what changes would help with that, if any.<p><i>Code sight-seeing</i>. Just having a few knowledgable folks navigate some well-known codebases on a projector with commentary&#x2F;analysis would be very interesting I think, both to see how others have solved things, and perhaps spot problems&#x2F;possible improvements. Must be done respectfully of course.<p>Now I almost feel as if I miss that conference. :&#x2F; More ideas, anyone?<p>(Edited for typos and grammar)

C++ is a semantically overloaded language. It is very far from &quot;C with classes&quot; at this point. In C, every construct has a direct mental mapping to its rough representation as machine code, and its corresponding side effects. C++ adds a &quot;meta stage&quot; after which the machine code might be the same, but it takes a lot of time for the programmer to figure out what is really happening.

I dislike C++ for the same reason I dislike all languages that try to be everything. You can use the language for years and there are still parts of it that you don&#x27;t understand properly. C on the other hand has such a minimal and clear syntax that you can learn it pretty fast and feel confident about the language.

In case you are wondering what&#x27;s this article is about, a more expressive title would be : &quot;C++&#x27;s problem with C&quot;.

As far as I can tell, the definition of C++ is mostly driven by compiler folks (and wannabes), motivated to add features for their own career benefit and generally doing so in the way that&#x27;s most convenient for them (e.g. std::move as a pseudo-function instead of as real syntax that the already-insane parser would have to handle). Since only the in-group&#x27;s interests are considered, the much more numerous regular C++ users are ill served.<p>For all its faults, there&#x27;s much less churn in the definition of C and what change does occur seems to be driven by clearly demonstrated needs out in the real world. C might seem stagnant, outdated, incomplete, or unsafe - all fair criticisms - but at least a competent C programmer&#x27;s hard-won knowledge of how to overcome these deficiencies doesn&#x27;t get turned on its head every few years as a new language version comes out. Even decades-old C (at least since the K&amp;R vs. ANSI function-declaration change) is still readable and scarcely less idiomatic than something written last week.<p>So, referring to the OP&#x27;s title, which language has the bigger <i>problem</i>?

So what is the &lt;title&gt; then again exactly?<p>Because my takeaway from the article is this: C++ piled loads and loads and them some loads of stuff onto a slim, easy, comprehensible language, is now a gigantic pile of complexity. that has precious little to do with its roots any more...and every attempt to solve its problems includes piling on more complexity.<p>So, how is that a problem of C?<p>C is not responsible for C++, simple as that.

C++ is an overloaded language whose complexity seems to be growing with each revision. Heck, I remember Bjarne Stroustrup even semi-lamenting it in one of the interviews.<p>I don&#x27;t understand why this is a C problem, whose syntax and definitions have been relatively stable for the last 3 decades. Author has gripes with C++ &#x27;universality&#x27; IMHO but just piling it on C.

As a (now, primarily) C developer who still uses plenty of C++ in mixed-language projects when needed: C++ should only provide as much C compatibility as is needed for consuming headers with C-API declarations, and nothing more.<p>Microsoft&#x27;s 2012 advice [1] to compile C code with a C++ compiler was misguided (at the time this was just an excuse to not support the latest C standards in MSVC). Writing C code in the so-called &quot;common C&#x2F;C++ subset&quot; is a massive PITA for a C coder, because this common subset is a nonstandard dialect of C which will forever be stuck in the mid-90s.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;herbsutter.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;05&#x2F;03&#x2F;reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;herbsutter.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;05&#x2F;03&#x2F;reader-qa-what-about-vc-an...</a>

Most programming languages are really good. People who talk ill of them just don&#x27;t know them well, and also probably never lived while there were no high-level languages. And honestly, people are creatures of trends; we don&#x27;t use the most popular languages because they&#x27;re flawless.<p>The only major problem with C is its community never took off with a popular library packager and linter. Every other language that seems so cool today would be just as painful as C if they didn&#x27;t have so many contributed modules and tweaks. Port those to C and people would fall in love with it all over again.

&gt; [C++] also had type inference very early on, but the developers of the mid-80s were not quite ready for that and Bjarne Stroustrup was pressured into removing auto, until it was added back to C++11.<p>Does anybody have background information on this claim? Was there actually a working compiler with it back then or was it just some proposal paper at the time?

C is just perfect as it is.

In classic &quot;get off my lawn&quot; style I thought C++ divergence from C when they abandoned cfront was where it all went wrong.<p>At least with cfront you had some idea of what was getting generated.<p>My favourite C++ compiler was Symantec 7 on windows. It was a great, affordable tool for making MFC applications and had a neat GUI builder too. I still have the CD of it but it refuses to install on windows 11 sadly.<p>Nowadays I just use C or C#, C++ just seems like a hard to use version of C# and I have little use for the extra performance it might have.

The problem with C is undefined behaviour. Not mentioned in this post.<p>Specifically the somewhat recent idea that code which does something naughty is best deleted. This makes updating a compiler a hazardous activity for approximately all &#x27;C&#x27; code. Also makes refactors somewhat risky when they send code down different paths in the compiler.<p>I wonder if this judgement and execution result from collaboration with C++.

More adequate title would be &quot;C++ problems with C&quot;..

I write a lot of code in a C++ codebase and I&#x27;d say C++ is horrific. Not just because of its roots in C, no I think it is actually a worse language than C. Notable detriments in the language include references, classes, a lot of template stuff (some of it is ok, but it makes separate compilation almost impossible).

Oh boy. Can&#x27;t wait to see how this comment section materializes.

C is a terrible language. You have to reinvent everything on it. The simplicity is just a lie.<p>C++ on the otherhand is way simple to use and really straightforward.<p>I like Zig too.

For me, C is perfect and just works and C++ doesnt. That being said, both their std libs are a big mess. It&#x27;s absolutely horrible. The problem is the macro preprocessor. It&#x27;s a horrible feature that should not have existed.