why i code in C
Why I code in C
Let's take stock of what's written in C. Or better yet, let's ask a slightly different question.
What's not written in C?
This list isn't exhaustive, but it gets the point across:
- FORTRAN
- COBOL
- Lisp
- ALGOL
- Pure assembly language
Nearly everything else that dominates GitHub today is either a child, grandchild, or cousin of C – meaning that the language is either compiled or interpreted by code written in C, or the language in which it's written was compiled or interpreted by code written in C. Here's my list of these:
- Python
- JavaScript
- PHP
- Ruby
- Lua
- Perl
- R
- C++
- Java
- C#/.NET
- Node.js
- Go
- Rust
- Clojure
- Scala
- Kotlin
- Mojo
You'll notice I left out Ada. That's because Ada was designed explicitly to not be C. Ada treats the compiler as a strict guardian to prevent runtime catastrophes, rather than, for example, allowing the programmer to cast pointers arbitrarily. And those compile-time safety checks are written in pure Ada. But once it decides your code is safe, it compiles to machine code with the GCC, which is written in C. So there's your cousin.
One other reason
The other reason I code in C is that I've been using that language since 1974. My first access to unix was at a community college near Huntsville, AL, the year I turned 15. I've done a lot of these other languages for money, but I don't write my own stuff in anything but C.