Re:Git's list of banned C functions
by atoav on Thursday March 04, 2021 @04:37PM
(#26348753)
Yeah there are footguns in every language. But this is not a boolean question about the presence of footguns, this is about how much one has to know to be able to handle a language safely.
I know C/C#/Python/Rust/Javascript.
After a decade of using C I am still not totally sure if I didn't dangle a pointer somwhere in precisely the wrong way to create havoc. And yeah, that means I have to get better, etc. But that is not the point. The point is, that even with a lot of experience in the language you can still easily shoot yourself into the foot and don't even notice it.
Meanwhile after a month of using Rust I felt confident that I didn't shoot myself in the foot, because I know what the compilers e.g. ownership guarantuees. While in C shooting myself into the foot happen quite often in Rust I would have to specifically find a way to shoot myself into the foot without the compiler yelling at me, and quite frankly I havent found such a way yet.
Javascript is odd, because the typesystem has quite a few footguns in it. This is why such things like Elm or Typescript exist: to avoid these footguns.
I don't want to take away from the accomplishments of C, and I still like the language, but to claim it is equally likely in all languages to shoot yourself into the foot is not true.
I know C/C#/Python/Rust/Javascript.
After a decade of using C I am still not totally sure if I didn't dangle a pointer somwhere in precisely the wrong way to create havoc. And yeah, that means I have to get better, etc. But that is not the point. The point is, that even with a lot of experience in the language you can still easily shoot yourself into the foot and don't even notice it.
Meanwhile after a month of using Rust I felt confident that I didn't shoot myself in the foot, because I know what the compilers e.g. ownership guarantuees. While in C shooting myself into the foot happen quite often in Rust I would have to specifically find a way to shoot myself into the foot without the compiler yelling at me, and quite frankly I havent found such a way yet.
Javascript is odd, because the typesystem has quite a few footguns in it. This is why such things like Elm or Typescript exist: to avoid these footguns.
I don't want to take away from the accomplishments of C, and I still like the language, but to claim it is equally likely in all languages to shoot yourself into the foot is not true.