Post #25,335
1/23/02 5:00:32 PM
8/21/07 6:00:41 AM
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You've completely confused me.
Yes, pointers in the wrong hands are a problem.
Yes, the average Java programmer is the wrong hands.
Sadly, programmers capable of writing good C are getting more and more scarce.
Yes, most biz programming doesn't need the level of efficiency of C.
To get slightly more on topic, I'm pretty sick of biz app programming. Its all getting to be like shoveling the stables. Nothing interesting in it at all anymore. I think I need a real programming job. System software or something...
I'm also finding the web to be more and more boring everyday.
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week.
The average farmer works 40 hours a week.
The average programmer works 60 hours a week.
What the hell are we thinking?
You've completely confused me.
Yes, pointers in the wrong hands are a problem.
Yes, the average Java programmer is the wrong hands.
Sadly, programmers capable of writing good C are getting more and more scarce.
Yes, most biz programming doesn't need the level of efficiency of C.
To get slightly more on topic, I'm pretty sick of biz app programming. Its all getting to be like shoveling the stables. Nothing interesting in it at all anymore. I think I need a real programming job. System software or something...
I'm also finding the web to be more and more boring everyday.
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week.
The average farmer works 40 hours a week.
The average programmer works 60 hours a week.
What the hell are we thinking?
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Post #25,369
1/23/02 8:28:33 PM
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Interesting C biz programming...
We've got dozens of TCP connections feeding us bond information at rates such that our database can't keep up with the traffic on a 12-way Sparc box.
We're moving that bit into C code... :-)
Very interesting stuff.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #25,470
1/24/02 12:16:11 PM
8/21/07 6:02:54 AM
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OT Question
This is an oracle db?
Did you know Oracle keeps saying they are dropping support for C libs and only want to support JDBC client libs going forward? Would this screw you up?
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week.
The average farmer works 40 hours a week.
The average programmer works 60 hours a week.
What the hell are we thinking?
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Post #25,510
1/24/02 1:50:30 PM
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Didn't know that.
Yes, it would completely fuck us up. Of course, we're still on 8.1.7, and they have the support in 9.X so far, so we're good for at least another year. :-)
I find it hard to believe they'd drop that, though. WAY too much Pro*C stuff out there.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #25,531
1/24/02 2:29:08 PM
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Au contraire!
I find it hard to believe they'd drop that, though. WAY too much Pro*C stuff out there. I can give one example that is somewhat similar. Informix dropped support for their C-language API libraries in the early or mid 90's. (They had support for embedded SQL, but the people using their application language library were out of luck - except to scramble to convert everything to embedded SQL, another language, or another database.) Granted, by that time Informix (once a leader in databases) was falling increasingly further behind Oracle, so their decision probably effected far fewer people, and I suppose most of their customers were probably using a 4GL rather than C, but at least one fairly major database player *has* done something like that. Come to think of it, it is a bit odd that they got rid of an API interface entirely; I know DB2 has one and obviously Oracle still has one - at least for a while. Doing things like that may have been one reason they completely fell apart in the late 90's. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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Post #25,554
1/24/02 3:29:57 PM
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Oracle I think is a different situation
Informix was much smaller, and as you say, they didn't survive.
I'd like to see a link (Todd) that references them giving up the C interface.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #25,579
1/24/02 4:56:12 PM
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Taking it to databases
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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Post #25,393
1/23/02 10:33:43 PM
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There shouldn't be any confusion
I am saying that saying that arguing for a particular design decision that Java happens to have accepted is not an argument for Java any more than it is for any other language that makes the same decision. Furthermore the fact that Java did a bad job with it doesn't mean that it can't be done well.
Finally I would argue that not only doesn't the average bizz application not need the performance of C, but it should not be written in C because most programmers can't be trusted with pointers. (The ones who can be trusted with them tend to be people like Dan Bernstein, whose first order of business is to write a library that protects him, and then writes to that library so he has as few opportunities as possible to f*ck up.)
As for whether someone should have access to that power, well of course. You can't bootstrap yourself up the toolchain without someone, somewhere, creating the safety gear that everyone else uses. And for speed boosts, it should be possible to speed up the 5% of the code which is your bottleneck. But most programmers do not need and should not have access to that level.
About your on topic comments, well of course. Most business programming is not done because it is interesting. It is done because someone needs it done and is willing to pay to see it so. Same goes for janitors, secretaries, and people working cash registers.
And the web didn't become important because it is cool, interesting, and fun. It won because it was lowest denominator to the point where non-technical people could figure it out. As a development environment it sucks. And people who want to put stuff on it, well either they don't want to pay (in which case it is probably stuff that only they care about) or else they want to pay (in which case you still don't care about it). Either way you are unlikely to care much about it.
Such is life. Let me give a different example of the same principle. I love books. I always have, probably always will. But when I walk into a bookstore I know what sections to look in. 90% of the shelves for me are an obstacle course between me and the sections I like. Nobody is asking me to help make the books I don't care about be available, so I don't often have cause to lament the situation. But if they did, I would.
Cheers,
Ben
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