Comment by 🚀 stack

=> Re: "SIS Progress Update: One Year Later" | In: u/clseibold

I don't think saying that C failed to 'evolve' with modern programming practices is a fair way of looking at it.

In my mind, C is basically a hammer -- a way to amplify and focus your energy onto a particular point or plane, without restrictions. It takes a bit of effort to figure out how to hit, and even more effort to figure out what and where to hit, not to mention when not to hit something with a hammer.

Hammers have not changed much in centuries for a good reason -- for those who know how to use them, adding fancy features and safety devices only makes them worse.

Sure, you can damage your wrist, smash a finger, or kill someone with a hammer -- or break your face by hitting a rubber tire. The product may be extremely ugly if you blindly hammer at a chunk of metal. But when used properly by even mediocre users, the results are usable.

So while adding fancy features to add 'safety', implicit handling of complicated immutable datastructures, etc. may seem like a convenience, like all training wheels it's fun right now, but a year later you may find yourself wondering why because you still can't ride a bike.

So that is why I think C will not go away in spite of calls to replace it by a modern language (and the fact that Linus is bending to accomodate the mob is making me feel that Linux may fall apart). C just does not get in the way too much.

As for slices, they are a very useful abstraction. But as a devil's advocate, I have to say that SSE instructions handling 0-terminated strings are several times faster than those working on explicitly-sized strings-- because they do not need to simultaneously track the length.

=> 🚀 stack

14 hours ago

Original Post

=> 🚀 clseibold

SIS Progress Update: One Year Later — SIS is my server "suite" software that allows you to set up different smallnet servers from within a gemini admin interface. It is called Smallnet Information Services, and it was inspired by IIS. After a year and a couple of months of work, I feel it is about a couple weeks out from a beta release, which I am excited about. I have finally mostly finished a major refactor update for SIS that will better manage certificates, hosts, and setting up servers,...

=> 💬 14 comments · 3 likes · Jan 15 · 4 days ago