C – The Least Common Denominator
Posted on | August 2, 2009 | 4 Comments
Many new programming languages have developed in last two decades. Java, Python, Ruby, Lisp, etc have gained popularity for different reasons and purposes. Each language has its own band of followers like football teams fans who try to bring other fans in their fold.
But any good programmer, especially of embedded systems, will tell you that even if you have mastered any of the ‘modern languages’ you must have good knowledge of C. Why?
Only C is close to assembly language. It is appropriate for 8 bit processors to 64 bit processors; in systems with bytes, kilobytes and megabytes of memory.
More over, it is fairly simple to learn(well, not as simple as python) and C-compilers are available for almost every processor in use, and there is a large body of C programmers.
But the real advantage of C over other high level programming languages is that C is ‘low level’ high level language. C gives you high level of direct hardware control without being difficult to code inlike assembly languages.
In real time systems, where speed of execution is of high importance, C is necessary. You can use other language as front-end in these systems but C for the number crunching , performance critical components.
Here is the discussion on reddit about which language is an alternative to C in embedded systems.
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4 Responses to “C – The Least Common Denominator”
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August 3rd, 2009 @ 10:43 am
C is the most common least common denominator. When a group of programmers get together to decide what to write the next new next best thing they ask
“so do you know language-X it would be perfect”
“no, though i do know language-Y its almost as good, do you know that?”
“no i dont, but I do know C and its not well suited to this task at all”
“I know C as well, lets use that because we all know it even if its not well suited to this project”
….
and then years later they hire me and i end up writing string manipulation routines in C for the 5 millionth time.
let me say this LOUDLY:
“C IS THE BEST LANGUAGE FOR WRITING OPERATING SYSTEMS”
“C is NOT the best language for writing (almost) EVERYTHING ELSE”
August 3rd, 2009 @ 9:21 pm
thnks for sharing the importance of c. just keep on posting such important information. since you are an IT student keep on posting sbout new languages.
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