Why C is so Influential - Computerphile

Why is C such an influential language? We asked ardent C fan Professor Brailsford.

This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

[HelloMyNamesNino]

C is important because otherwise we’d have to code with omputers.

[stevenliu]

Well, you know what they say about the elegance of C:

C combines the power and speed of assembly language with the readability and maintainability of assembly language.

[geoblk]

This is a man who can really appreciate the computing power we have today.

[saeedbaig]

1970s: "Real men use Assembly!"
2010s: "Real men use C!"
At this rate we'll be saying "Real men use Python!" by 2050.

[salsamancer]

I'm a programmer (not a computer scientist) and I use C and I even LIKE it. It's like a manual transmission. Sure you can get yourself into trouble, but you have control and wielding it responsibly is satisfying.

[EXHellfire]

real men solder the transistors on the chips themselves and make dedicated computers for each software they need

[JohnPMiller]

I wrote many games & system utilities in 6502 (and later 8088) assembly language. I still think it's important to understand what's actually running on the CPU (or GPU or TPU). Assembly is no longer my "go-to" language (more like "don't-go-there" language), but it still has a purpose. The best thing about C is its staying power and it's closeness to the hardware. I'm an electrical engineer.

[VAXHeadroom]

I program satellite flight control systems for a living. We use C with *lightly* C++ just enough to abstract higher-level behaviors, but there are still some ASM subroutines for when we need to insure the exact order of operations to interact with the hardware. Our software that flew the LCROSS mission used 5% of the 100Mhz RAD750 (PPC core) processor.

[furrane]

To explain the different levels of programming languages I like to use the analogy of someone that needs to go from point A to point B :
- If you're a regular guy and you just want to go visit a friend, you could call a taxi, you don't have to do anything, he'll bring you to your destination, that's what high level programming languages do.
- If you want to go to work everyday, you might want to have your own car, you'll need to know how to operate it but now you have a lot more flexibility.
- If you're doing a rally, you need to excel at driving the car and you'll need to tweak the engine and everything under the hood, you have total control but need to spend a lot of time setting everything up. This is low level programming languages.

There's not one option better than the other, it just depends on the job you want to do =)

[onijclink]

"the right programming language for the right task" wise words

[xhjbever]

We need to appreciate how c has been around for around 50 years and is still one of the most popular and best programming languages

[Jauffre-innit]

There's something wonderful about seeing an older generation talking about computing, even when they are still so passionate

[GFmanaic]

Java :«We're gonna ban pointers»

Makes everything a pointer

[displayoff]

I love this professor, always a joy to watch.

[himselfe]

There is the argument however that as hardware gets better, programmers get lazier and software gets slower. Bloat is a terrible thing, and many programmers could do with learning to program within constraints. I absolutely agree with the idea of using the right tool for the job, but that should not be an excuse for doing things badly.

[kps]

It was my first language, i am thank full i learned it, the second language i learned was c++, then java, now i have good understanding of how it all works, thanks to C

[johndoe]

I still use c on a daily basis. Particularly when dealing with hardware. C is simply put, fantastic! And it's so simple!

[EvilSandwich]

I admit as someone that learned how to program on assembly, I actually found high-level languages slightly intimidating at first. I didn't feel comfortable relinquishing the absolute control over the byte and cycle count that assembly gave me. Or knowing exactly what was happening on the data and address pins of the CPU. I neurotically couldn't stand the idea of a black box in my programming. If I couldn't type in a piece of code and see it on an oscilloscope as it was running step by step, I was always worried something was going to go on that I couldn't control.

In the end, the convenience and speed of it all won me over. But I still find myself embedding in pure assembly code in my C programming for the sake of optimization from time to time.

[whatsmyname]

the only output i get using C
.
.
.
.
.
.
segmentation fault (core dumped)

[JoeBonez]

In 1979, I worked with a language called SPL (systems programming language) on the Hewlett-Packard 3000 minicomputers. It was an Algol derived language with an “assemble()” construct to allow in-line assembly. It was tons of fun.