Not enougth people for exchange

[Grincheux]

I think that the administrators would have to make something for many people post.
In this forum there are no members but GHOSTS.
Only 5/6 people make posts, that's poor!
It's time to make something, the forum will die...

[MrBcx]

Quality is more important than quantity.

Every forum has a regular number of lurkers ( ghosts, as you call them ).  That's the nature of things.
Only a few people (create) TV shows while most people just want to sit back and (watch) TV shows.

The trick to getting more (participation) on a programming forum is to find topics and projects that
are interesting to many people.  That's a hard thing to do but it's not impossible.  You could begin by
starting a thread that asks forum users what kind of open source app that they would like to see developed
using Pelles C. 

Depending on the response that you get, next step is to set out a roadmap and a few basic rules for people
who want to participate in the project.  Keep things loose, fun, and interesting otherwise the project will
almost certainly fail.

That's my 2¢

[Grincheux]

Why do you don't do what you say?

[MrBcx]

Why do you don't do what you say?

Maintaining this website: https://bcxbasiccoders.com , administering the BCX forum, and
being a Moderator on Pelles' forum ( mostly blocking spammers ) keeps me pretty busy.

[Grincheux]

OK.
I have looked at your site. Could tell me more about it?


I stay on this forum for some persons : Mr Pelle, Frankie, TimoVJL, JohnZ and Vortex.
If they  were not here I would go to another forum.

[MrBcx]

OK.
I have looked at your site. Could tell me more about it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCX

[Pelle]

This is what I have to say (more or less):

If people are still around, and have something to say, they will post - no matter what any "administration" (or lack there of) do or don't.

I think the general "problem" is that most C code has already been written. The professionals, even for hobby projects, are using newer/shinier languages, and many hobbyists are using other languages because they are "easier" (and fast enough on newer hardware).

It seems that many C compilers today are used for either 1) compiling some already written open source "library" or 2) as the code generator for higher level language compilers/translators, that produce C code, and need a way to turn this into machine code. There are of course always other uses, but probably less so than in the past. Assembly programming has unfortunately never been a big topic in this forum.

I think some of this can be seen with the upcoming new C standard (C2X, expected in 2023), where not everything can be blamed on the pandemic. Apparently there is now a shortage of "C experts" on the committee, so too many (in my opinion) suggestions are coming from C++ wannabees: either to make C look more like C++, or to introduce some other personal pet project feature. This makes me sad, but this is probably the reality.

For now I'm concentrating on the next version of Pelles C, and then we'll see what happens. I can't do everything myself, so if there is little action in this forum perhaps this is an indication that all is said and done. I dunno...

[MrBcx]

The tiobe index consistently shows that "C" has lots of life left in it and
that it will likely remain in the top percentile for a long time to come.

https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

When I first dabbled in "C" 20+ years ago, LccWin32, and soon after, Pelles C
were my incubators.  Later still, I would dabble with Borland, Mingw, MSVC,
and TCC.  And whereas each had strengths and weaknesses, working with the
Pelles IDE and toolset always felt most comfortable to me.  Small is beautiful.

[frankie]

I agree with Pelle, but I would like to add some more considerations.
Most of 'C' code has been written, mainly libraries, and for each of them has been written wrappers to use their functionalities in almost all languages. This is a point for the superior 'portability' of pure 'C' code. For this reason the use of the language may resist on (?). As a drawback the 'C' language isn't very friendly, and to use it correctly at the top of its capabilities requires some knowledge that isn't basic.
In the same time the producers of OS's, MS & friends, to make available the every day increasing functions and features push on more advanced languages, privileging OOP. To work with objects is in some way easier, you have the object and methods to use it. The programmer can program with limited knowledge, the programming errors are reported and, sometimes transparently corrected, by the object class code. You can see that even on toys, i.e. see Arduino, using C++ they allows absolute beginners to program even bare metal.
The spreading of OOP is, anyway, also due to compiler technologies that elaborates more in deep analysis emitting effective static code where in older compilers were used runtime libraries to dynamically resolve part of the job. These capabilities together with nowadays powerful hardware makes the job.
But for now 'C' will resist, at least until new hardware with instruction set optimized for OOP will come...

I think some of this can be seen with the upcoming new C standard (C2X, expected in 2023), where not everything can be blamed on the pandemic. Apparently there is now a shortage of "C experts" on the committee, so too many (in my opinion) suggestions are coming from C++ wannabees: either to make C look more like C++, or to introduce some other personal pet project feature. This makes me sad, but this is probably the reality.

Me too think it is so... 

Keep on and look forward for next version of PellesC 

[bitcoin]

And what is the alternative to C? None, maybe C ++. Many people write that Rust will kill C, but I doubt it.

And the forum is very good, I asked a question - everyone answered on the case.

[John Z]

My 2 cents -

I don't agree that most "C" code has been written, sure there is a huge, huge, volume out there but there is still opportunity to be as creative as one would/could be with any newer language. 

I do agree that one of the issues with "C" is it's longevity. The longevity of "C" results in 1) a plethora of "C" development packages, 2) a highly capable base of C users, 3) a large store of "C" code for almost anything, but not quite everything . 4) ageism, the perception that "C" is so last century, not quite COBOL old but not far behind.  Yes, I've used COBOL.....heard it is making a comeback 

The result is that less people doing "C" (development, programing, coding - what is politically correct term?) need to seek out help or input on "C". The majority have already picked their favorite development package, more questions arise from doing "Windows" than doing "C".  So forums get less traffic for "C" questions/help etc. However as seen from the above post we can still be of help to some.

IMO "C" gives the user a strong useful minimal set of core functions (actually abstractions) that provide a base for writing applications.  Who wants to write code for fprintf for every "C" program they write?  Even MASM32 provides these abstractions along with many for doing "Windows" programing (they also use some Pelles binaries).

So programing is moving more and more towards higher and higher level of abstractions.  The education system pushes towards these higher level abstractions which new programing languages promote.  Of course there are important improvements in some fundamental areas such as memory management, safe code practices, but generally newer languages are promoted and being taught as being more efficient by using predefined higher level abstractions. How many times have you seen "create a web brower in two lines of code, no wait, use this one it only takes one line of code"?  Of course you are then stuck with the web abstraction concept of that developer...

What can be done is to promote Pelles C in our projects to increase visibility.  Reference PellesC web site in the sofware documentation and credit PellesC use.  I hope Pelles C continues to grow and advances, I'll continue to use it regardless.  When you just tell your AI here is my program concept, write it, then we will be an abstraction too.

John Z

[Pelle]

I think there is enough momentum/money/consultants/whatever behind C++ to make it popular for new projects in a shorter time span (could still be 20 years or more). Especially on Windows, but probably in general, C peaked a long time ago. Can't deny that.

One thing in favor of C right now is that you can be almost certain there is a C compiler "everywhere" (on any platform). This may not always be true for a bigger and more complex language like C++, but I think this is gradually changing.

So much code has been written in C that it will survive for a long time, could perhaps even outlive C++ some day, but predicting the future is hard impossible.

[Grincheux]

Like many programmers I used APL, COBOL (DPS6/7, IBM 3090, AS400), FORTRAN (VAX,PDP), ASM (VAX, PDP, PC, ATARI), C (VAX, PDP, PC, ATARI) and they all continue to exist. Tell the scientist that FORTAN must be replaced with C++... You must run very quick.


Even if C is dead, that's to the admins, to the users to make live the language.
I am thinking as something like "ASTERIS & OBELIX" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix).


You who are coming here give us your advices, learn us new technics, new algos...

[MrBcx]

I don't agree that most "C" code has been written,
..... there is still opportunity to be as creative as one would/could be with any newer language. 

What can be done is to promote Pelles C in our projects to increase visibility.  Reference PellesC web site in the sofware documentation and credit PellesC use.  I hope Pelles C continues to grow and advances, I'll continue to use it regardless.  When you just tell your AI here is my program concept, write it, then we will be an abstraction too.

John Z

I strongly agree with those points.  The fact is, some people are creative and some are not. 
And some will always seek the tools that helps them to best express their creativity. 

I am an amateur guitar player with a fair number of instruments in my collection.  My favorite
instruments ( to play ) are 50+ years old, and bear the battle scars of time.  Yet the tone that
comes out of those instruments, whose wood is even older, cannot be matched with the sexy
looking, shiny new guitars.  Newer is not always better.  Small is beautiful.  Keep it simple!

[Bitbeisser]

Tell the scientist that FORTAN must be replaced with C++... You must run very quick.

Around here, a lot of code that would typically written in Fortran (nobody writes FORTRAN these days anymore  ), in scientific or engineering scenarios, is now written in Julia instead.

Ralf