Dive into Rust or learn C first?

I had a look at your posting history and you've fought very hard to pooh-pooh C as a programming language and hail Rust as the only thing to learn!

I'm impressed. Such propaganda efforts! Did somebody hurt you in your past with C? Did you struggle to understand it? Did you make lots of fatal errors that cost you a job because you simply couldn't follow simple safe programming techniques using C?

It's one thing to have an opinion. It's another to write tens of long-winded posts decrying C and promoting Rust above all else.

I get it - I like Rust. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. It's a great language with more complete compile-time checking (albeit at a slower compile time cost). I think it can replace C as a systems programming language.

But you're telling people NOT to learn C. You're throwing in all kinds of misinformation like "modern C is not a macro assembler at all" and other one-liners that you've failed to provide comprehensive proof for. You're scared of assembly.

The fact is it doesn't matter what assembly you decide to learn - some microcontroller RISC instructions if you really want are fine. Just realise assembly involves different memory addressing models, has a jump instruction, and has a return instruction that automatically fetches a program counter from the stack.

The fact is it doesn't matter if modern C compilers have additional tricks up their sleeves. Just know, instinctively, that a for loop will appear a certain way in assembly. Understand the call stack.

Finally appreciating that Rust tracks pointer usage is a big win. These are all progressive understandings that are awarded through knowing the technology stack.

I don't know what happened to you or why you're so against learning and knowledge. You don't need it to be a programmer - but it sure is useful. There's a reason why Vettel sticks around after crashing out in a F1 race to look at the other vehicles' performance and stats.

/r/rust Thread Parent