C is one of the most powerful programming languages.
C may be superseded by newer languages in time to come (maybe 5-20 years or maybe longer) time? by Java, .NET and other newer languages. But no doubt that all these languages evolved from C.
That that is quite true. C being flexible can be notoriously mind bogging when you need to deal with memory management which I must say a lot of recent developers I see failed to exercise sufficient caution when coming to development using C. With upcoming languages that basically strip away these from the developers, you will find less and less developers able to cope with memory management issues. It can be a sad thing, but it's unavoidable.
As we more higher level into the technology, it is often not possible to dwell on the tedious aspect of development. Even languages need to be plug and play, and exhibit reusable features. Boilerplates and scaffolding are also better to be exhibited in the language construct rather than a template.
So I won't be surprised that C may one day face extinction for being an unsafe language in the future. Humans are often the weakest link when coming to security.
"Dennis Ritchie (1941 2011). His pointer has been cast to void *; his process has terminated with exit code 0."
- James Grimmelmann
I also won't be surprise that if after 50yrs (from now), some industry are still hanging on to C despite "extinction" (e.g. aviation, engineering and banks). These are some industry that speed performance of program is very crucial and up to now, I still believe that C still executes faster as compared to any newer programming language now.
This may still be so after XX years from now till one day someone revamps the base C programming as well as rewrite the processors... but still no doubt that all those technology/languages which may in time to come (may not be there to witness it) taps on the background of C..
I came from a "newer" language background (Java/.NET), find it hard/annoying to go into memory management in C ("pointing hell" or "pointers hell") and more so with error trappings -.- (too pampered by the frameworks of Java and .NET)
cks2k2 said:I used to write a fair bit of C/C++ code; only recently did I switch to C#. It's a bit strange handing over lots of responsibility to the runtime but it does get minimize obscure memory leaks (forgot to cleanup/don't know when to cleanup) and crashes (virtual pointer pointing to null because you deleted the derived object too early).
If you do not have anything good to say nor positive opinion of him, than keep your silence as your opinion is not welcome here at all, [sic].
another tribute article to him..
warning: if u r not happy of the comparisons to the other guy, dun click this.
Dennis Ritchie - CNN.com
i guess the mod's advice from here applies, esp