Joel got it wrong - Why learning C is a waste of your college time and money

re: Joel got it wrong - Why learning C is a waste of your college time and money

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re: Joel got it wrong - Why learning C is a waste of your college time and money

Groxx — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:07:16 GMT

The addition to your first main reply, that CS professors teach C because they know it better than they know proper design principles is, in my experience, EXTREMELY accurate. Every professor I've ever had who taught C (and several I've talked to, as well as many other programmers who started with and continue to use C) has had only the barest concept of even proper Object Oriented programming, much less designing good applications.

When confronted with a problem, they hack something out in C and call it "good enough". They spend DAYS on micro-optimizations, and miss the O(n^2) that their entire algorithm results in, when there's a O(log(n)) solution that they could have found had they thought about the problem in abstract instead of in C-code.

Heck, few of them even see the use for the Model-View-Controller pattern when building a GUI app that hooks into a database. They roll it all into one, with very poor separation of classes. And yes, they've SAID that they don't think there's a reason to use MVC in large applications.

That said, C-as-learning-fundamentals is useful, and EVERY programmer should have at least some concept of the fundamentals. But can't we find a better language that fits this bill? C produces hideously un-readable code, and most classes deal exclusively with the standard library, which is RIDDLED with obscure idiosyncrasies that shouldn't exist in the first place. The few good C/C++ developers I've run across almost universally use BOOST, or at least rant and rave about the idiocy of the standard library.

Oddly enough, those good ones are also usually math professors, and they absolutely devour design patterns and hard problems (artificial neural networks, thread control in a kernel, etc). They _learn_, while most C-teaching professors seem to be constantly patting themselves on the back for their insignificant micro-optimization that is called once in their entire program, rather than improving the program as a whole.

re: Joel got it wrong - Why learning C is a waste of your college time and money

Greg — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:30:10 GMT

I am a C++ dev who now mostly does C#. I can tell you that the difference between coders who did C/C++ first and those that learned C# as their first language are different as night and day. The most brain dead moron can eventually get C# code to "work", but neither cares why nor whether it is efficient or not.

The pure C# coder blames bugs on the Framework, garbage collection, the OS, etc. They are so used to so many things being done for them it's no great leap to assume that they don't have to actually write good code or debug it.

Unfortunately, this is the future of programming. God help us all.

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re: Joel got it wrong - Why learning C is a waste of your college time and money

portrait painting — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 04:05:22 GMT

In my current work, I can’t underestimate the significance of C. A large number of UK-based companies are looking for a number of talented C software developers. But lately, I noticed that the demand shifted to C++ coders. In order not to waste any manpower, C++ coders teach the C folks enough C++ to be more effective.

re: Joel got it wrong - Why learning C is a waste of your college time and money

Guy — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:33:58 GMT

I'm a Mangement Consultant and have been doing BA and PM work amongst other stuff for many years. I have interviewed more than a few developers in my time.

I must confess that in all my interactions with developers the ones who have really known their stuff seemed to all come from a hard core c/c++ background. Thats not to say there weren't a few good 'uns who came from VB or Perl or other backgrounds. I have of course met many C++ geeks who I wouldn't rely on to code anything beyond some small utility.

I think its like every other profession. The good ones are good because theyy're interested and dedicated and want to take it to the nth degree. You tend to find more good ones with a background in the hardcore languages like c and c++ because they were interested enough to investigate beyond the packaged frameworks of the modern languages. Why and how are powerful words. Why was it like that? How does that work? If you have that sort of mind then you will be good no matter what language you learn.

Personally I think c and c++ teach you all about memory management in a way that the managed languages don't which gives you an instant advantage in the programming game.

I want to get into development more for my own purposes. I will start with c++ and then move on to c# and/or java. It'll take me longer but my interest will mean my understanding will be far greater in the long run