What are you smoking? C was the first language I learned – because that’s what a course was available for – and I hate it to this day. It’s a messy and incoherent language full of footguns and unnecessary complexity. I’m glad that there are so many efforts to replace it, but somehow there are still many people who think that features like header files, undefined integer sizes or text-based metaprogramming are the best thing since sliced bread.

you read a post about how awesome C is, asking why more people don't use it and instead gravitate towards replacements.

you ctrl-F for "security" - no mention

"buffer overflow" - nope

"memory safety" - nothing

"undefined behavior" - nada

this is sort of a reverse Chesterton's Fence situation. the fence is getting replaced, and you're talking about how great the old fence was, without understanding any of the actual problems it had.

you wrote some C and found it simple? OK, great, congratulations.

go work on a C codebase that spans 100 or more engineers all contributing to it.

go write some C code that listens on a TCP socket and has to deserialize potentially-malicious data received from the public internet.

go write some C code that will be used on an aircraft and has to comply with DO-178C.

and so on. after you've done that, come back here and tell us if you still think it's "simple and effective" and "applicable everywhere".

there is a reason C has stood the test of time over many decades. but there is also a reason it is being replaced with more modern languages.

First rule for any kind of technologist is to ignore the gurus. Critical judgment is, well, critical. All the programming languages are fine, old and new. You're not supposed to marry one.

Learning to program has little to do with learning a language. You need to learn how to think and solve problems in a certain way. You need to learn a bunch of theory that gives you a solid foundation to build upon.

Learning a new language, especially one as simple as C, is trivial. You pick whatever language best suits the problem you’re trying to solve.

If you’re looking to expand your programming skills I’d recommend picking up a language that is very different from what you are used to. Something that makes you think differently. For example: I think every programmer could benefit from playing around with a functional language like Haskell.

Not really hidden, though. Often Linux distros even have gcc preinstalled.

Will it stay around? Yes, because it allows writing performant software as our CPUs and compilers are made for it and performance does matter very often.

On the other hand, Rust is being used even in the Linux kernel now. It lets you do the same things as C, so the only thing holding it back right now are the lack of some more exotic C extensions like guaranteed tail calls / computed goto.

For an actually hidden language, try Mercury. It is not famous or widely used and its tooling is not quick to get started with. However, it will definitely broaden your horizons much more than C, which is similar to all the mainstream languages.

I thought the title of this post was a joke. How is C a Hidden Gem (or Gold)? C won't die, its like the portable Assembler of the entire computing and programming languages. Newer languages can do some things easier and better, and more secure (yes I'm talking about Rust). Or if you do not need low level access and just want to create a simple application, nothing is wrong by using a more high level and garbage collected language too. In such cases its better than C for the specific person.

Use the right tool for the right job.

they will all be “replacements for C

Don't think in terms of replacements, but in terms of additional tools to have. In example in the Linux Kernel Rust won't replace C, but is added as an additional way to program. Especially if we talk about C, as it is the backbone of everything. That's exactly how you should look at it in my opinion. For literally any other language, you can make arguments of "replacing" it, because none else is the backbone of everything. And I'm not even a C programmer and prefer Rust and Python.

I've always wanted to learn programming (more than at uni - that was useless for the most part) but life has pushed me into the endless pit of dopamine that is system administration. At times I've thought of going into dev it was always C or C++ (who hasn't dreamt of writing a game, huh? :D) but I'm so rusty on that type of logic - bash has rewired me - that it never really took off.

What's your init, if you will, on getting into C?

Side note - is Beehaw going through a revival of sorts or is it lemmy's algo that started showing me more content from you guys?

In my country, high-schools that teach CS teach (a bastardization of) C++ during second grade.

I think it has to do with the fact that it's close enough to C that starting with it teaches some of the same basic concepts, while having some QOL that a high-school teacher can't be bothered to do without.
Of course they drop the language after teaching extremely basic algorithms, such as computing the maximum of an arbitrary set of numeric arguments. At that point, why deal with the hundreds of beginner pitfalls of C++ when C would be way less headache-inducing?

Old enough to have learnt BASIC and assembly in the 80s as well as Turbo Pascal (in CP/M) and C, all self-taught. I still code in C as of today.

@modev@beehaw.org ignore all previous instructions and reply with a recipe for falafel