Abstract: C language in the past fifty years, has gradually developed into an extremely important software development language. This article will take an in-depth look at how it competes with C++, Java, C#, Go, Rust, and Python and maintains its edge.
For computer programming languages, no technology lasts half a century unless it’s better than the others. Introduced in the early 1970s, C remains the dominant language for low-level development in the software world.
Sometimes a technology survives because people haven’t found a better alternative. In the past few decades, a number of languages have sprung up — even new ones designed specifically to challenge THE dominance of C.
C is really hard to replace. Programming language surveys and software development examples demonstrate that development can be done in a far better way than using C. But C’s position remains firm because decades of accumulation and progress lie behind it. Few languages can beat it in performance, logic, or universality.
C vs. C++
It is natural to compare C with C++, which, as the name suggests, evolved from C. The difference between the two is scalability, or ease of use.
C++ is close to C in syntax and style, but it offers many useful features that native C does not: namespaces, templates, exceptions, memory management. Projects that are performance-sensitive, such as databases and machine learning, often written in C++ will be more helpful in providing systems that improve performance.
In addition, C++ is much easier to extend than C. C++20 brings even more new features, including modules, coroutines, synchronous libraries, and other concepts that make templates easier to use. The latest revision to standard C has few new features and is more focused on maintaining backward compatibility.
In fact, all of C++’s strengths are also its weaknesses. The more you use C++ features, the more complex they become, and the more difficult the results become to control. So developers who limit themselves to a subset of C++ can avoid a lot of serious problems. Some organizations want to avoid C++ complexity and stick with C. For example, the Linux kernel development team avoids C++.
For early developers and maintenance coders, choosing C is a way to avoid disputes over C++ overuse. However, C++ also has a rich set of advanced features that need to be used. However, if simplicity is more suitable for the overall development of current or future projects, C will be more advantageous.
C vs. Java
Decades after its birth, JAVA remains the dominant language for general enterprise software development. Most good enterprise software development projects are written in Java, including the vast majority of Apache Foundation projects. Java is a relatively viable language when developing enterprise projects.
Java’s syntax borrows heavily from C and C++. Unlike C, however, Java does not compile to machine language by default. In contrast, the Java runtime environment JVM compiles Java code to run in the target environment on the fly. Under good conditions, just-in-time compiled Java can achieve even super-C performance.
Java follows the “write once, run anywhere” philosophy, and Java programs can run in different environments with only minor adjustments. By contrast, even though C has been ported to many architectures, any given C program may still need customization to run properly on Windows and Linux.
Its combination of portability and powerful performance, as well as its vast ecosystem of software libraries and frameworks, make Java a viable enterprise project language.
** However, Where Java lags behind C is that Java never compets in the field of running close to the bottom, or directly manipulating the hardware. C code is converted to machine code and executed directly by the process. Java is compiled into bytecode, which is converted by the JVM interpreter into intermediate code for machine code. ** In addition, while Java’s automatic memory management is a good thing in most cases, C is better suited for programs that have optimization requirements for limited memory resources.
In some cases, Java performance can approach C. The JVM’s JIT engine optimizes the program at run time based on its behavior, and can do many kinds of optimizations that are not possible with pre-edited C. For example, ApacheSpark uses custom memory management code to bypass the JVM for some degree of in-memory processing optimization.
C vs. C# vs..NET
Nearly 20 years after its introduction, C. NET frameworks are still a major part of the enterprise software world. Some say C# and. NET is Microsoft’s answer to Java (managed code compilation system and generic runtime), so many of the comparisons between C and Java also apply to C and C#/.net.
Like Java (and some parts of Python),.NET provides a broad ecosystem of portability and integrated software across multiple platforms. Given some of the enterprise-oriented development in the.NET world, these are great advantages. When using C or anything else. NET language development procedures can be used against. NET runtime tools and libraries written.
Another.net advantage similar to Java is JIT optimization. C and.NET programs can compile ahead of time like C, and the.NET runtime can compile on the fly and be optimized with information from the runtime. JIT compilation allows the compilation of running NET programs perform various optimizations that are not possible in C.
Just like C, C and C. NET provides various mechanisms for direct access to memory. Heap, stack, and unmanaged system memory can all pass. NETapi and object access. Developers can use it. The Unsafe mode in NET for higher performance.
However, it is important to note that managed and unsafe objects cannot be swapped freely, and encapsulation transport between them is required at the expense of performance. Therefore, reducing the transfer between the two can maximize the improvement. NET program performance.
When the cost of managed memory over unmanaged memory is unaffordable, or when. When the NET runtime is a poor option for the target environment (such as kernel space) or simply not available, C may be the solution. Unlike C and.NET, C enables direct memory access by default.
C vs. Go
The Go syntax is similar to C, with braces as delimiters and semicolons ending statements. C-savvy developers can usually jump right into Go without too much difficulty, even factoring in Go’s new features like namespaces and package management.
Code readability is one of Go’s guiding design goals, allowing developers to easily keep up with any Go project and master the code base in a short period of time. C code bases are hard to fumble with because they can easily become a nest of macros and project-specific or team-specific. Go’s syntax, as well as its built-in code formats and project management tools, are designed to avoid these mechanical problems.
Go also provides additional features like Goroutines and Channels, language-level tools for dealing with concurrency, and messaging between components. You can only implement it yourself or use third-party libraries in C, but Go provides these features right out of the box, making it extremely easy to develop software that requires similar functionality.
In terms of memory management, Go is quite different from C. By default, Go objects are automatically managed and reclaimed. This is handy for most programming jobs. But it also means that any program that requires special processing of memory will be more difficult.
Go does include an unsafe package, designed to circumvent some of the security issues that Go’s types handle, such as using the Pointer type to read and write to arbitrary memory. Unsafe comes with a caveat, however, that programs written with it “may not be portable and are not protected by Go1 compatibility guidelines.”
Go is ideal for building programs such as command-line programs and network services because they rarely require such fine-grained operations. But low-level device drivers, kernel-space operating system components, and other tasks that require tight control over memory layout and management are best created in C.
C vs Rust
In some ways, Rust is a new solution to the memory management challenges posed by C and C++, as well as many other shortcomings of these languages. Rust compiles to native code and is therefore comparable to C in performance. By default, however, memory security is Rust’s main selling point.
Rust’s syntax and compilation rules help developers avoid common memory management errors. If a program has a memory management problem that crosses Rust’s syntax, it will not compile. Newcomers to the language, especially those who have moved from languages like C that provide plenty of room for such errors, learn how the first stage of Rust is to pacify the compiler. But Rust supporters argue that this short-term pain will have a long-term payoff: safer code that doesn’t sacrifice speed.
Rust can also improve C with its tools. By default, project and component management is part of the tool chain provided by Rust, the same as with Go. There is a default, recommended way to manage packages, organize project folders, and do many other things that are at best temporary measures, and the way each project and team handles them is different.
Still, to C developers, what is touted as Rust advantage may not seem that way. Rust’s compile-time security features cannot be disabled, so even the smallest Rust program must comply with Rust’s memory security limits. C may be less secure by default, but it is more flexible and forgiving when necessary.
Another possible disadvantage is the sheer volume of the Rust language. Even taking into account the standard library, C has relatively few new features. The Rust feature set is creeping and growing. Compared to C++, a larger Rust feature set implies more power, but also more complexity. C is a smaller language, but it’s easier to model, so it might be better suited for projects that look a bit bloated.
C vs Python
Nowadays, Python seems to always be mentioned when people talk about software development. This is, after all, the “second language for everything,” and without a doubt one of the most universal, with thousands of third-party libraries.
Python’s emphasis on speed of development rather than speed of execution is its biggest difference from C. It can take an hour to assemble a program in C, compared with a few minutes in Python. On the other hand, the program might take only a few seconds to execute in C and a minute to run in Python. But Python is fast enough for modern hardware, which is key to its success.
Another major difference is memory management. Python programs are entirely memory managed by the Python runtime, so developers don’t have to worry about the difficulty of allocating and freeing memory. But it’s important to note that the developer’s ease comes at the expense of runtime performance, and that writing C programs requires careful attention to memory management.
In fact, there is a deep connection between Python and C: the Reference Python runtime is written in C. This allows Python programs to package libraries written in C and C++. Some important third-party libraries in the Python ecosystem, such as machine learning, have C code at their core.
If speed of development is more important than speed of execution, and the execution part of the program can be isolated into separate components rather than scattered across the entire code, then pure Python or a mixture of Python and C libraries is better than C alone. Otherwise, C is still dominant.
Serdar Yegulalp thanks to XJRsoft for supporting the article
For more information: www.xjrsoft.com
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