In my opinion, C purists are people who REALLY need to wash their fucking dishes, touch grass and get some sunlight. They get too worked up because “all the important things are written in C”, the important things being drivers, kernel and most basic stuff that OS needs.

Whenever one talks about performance, just reply with “use Assembly” and their argument is immediately invalidated. You can also mention networking, fault tolerance and how Erlang does a much better job than C or C++ could do, which is why “real adults with real jobs” created it in the early 90s

But mostly, it’s ironic that they’re becoming C-Conservatives, blaming the “hot new language” for bringing “the kids”. You can read the same kind of logic and disdain for C programmers, from LISP programmers, in the Unix Hater’s Handbook (1994)

They see the scale of high-level to low-level languages. They see that C is on the human-practical low end of this scale. They ascribe value to being on the low end of the scale. Tada! C is now objectively™ the best language!

Be language agnostic and use the correct tool for the job.

Very few people have a truly diverse software experience base. Many humans without a large, diverse experience base have trouble imagining there are problems outside their own experience.
There are millions of different problems that need software solutions. People with limited experience have opinions as to the “best” software.
People with large, diverse experience bases tend to be a bit more circumspect and can understand there is no single best answer. The “best” software for a given task depends on many things, including the problem, the schedule, the availability of resources, etc.

They are wrong. The correct answer is Rust. Have a great day.

C++ is pretty awesome but anyone who thinks a single language is the solution to all problems is dumb… unless you’re smart enough to realize that the one language to rule them all is PHP of course!

I think some people really like iso/iec standards while others find standards “annoying”.

As an older coder, I’ve spent time commercially programming in a lot of languages (C, C++, C#, Python, TransactSQL, Javascript, and a few more - with many years of experience in each. I even spent time squeezing some forth code into a small programmable chip.

My first comment on this « attitude » expressed above is that you need to pick the language (and its libraries) that is best for your problem space - each will have advantages, including constructs and libraries to suit whatever domain you are working in. Hence forth for a microchip, TransactSQL for DB stored procs, python for general purpose command line work etc.

Having said that I do want to present one viewpoint which could give rise to this above expressed opinion. It’s an area that C is considered pretty strong - specifically language complexity. When coding in C, I really felt like I knew every nook and cranny of the language, exactly how every structure would be packed, what the assembly would probably look like.

Python (and perhaps C#) are currently my favorite languages - python only has 36 keywords and while I don’t have the same solid grasp of what’s happening under the hood, I do feel like there are very few surprises and corner cases to the language, even while supporting some complex programming methodologies.

The opposite of this is (IMHO) swift. What started as a really nice language with a clean syntax and solid libraries has morphed into a monster with 232 keywords. Does any swift programmer have a solid grasp of it all?

I would say that C++ is at the complicated end of the spectrum - spend some time inside Boost and their extreme use of templates/meta-programming and it will make your head spin. The Boost developers are super smart people, but its non-trivial to understand what is going on. Having said that, C++ does make you feel that you can code close to the machine and have a good handle on what is happening under the hood.

This level of control is probably one place where this « only C and C++ code is any good » attitude came from. Its not an attitude I support.

It’s no different from anyone else with arbitrary, narrow-minded views. People like that, whether they realize it or not, don’t believe in the intrinsic value of personhood.

This extends to their view of themselves and creates a need to feel valuable for some other reason. So they create a narrow idea of what it means to be good and valuable and it just so happens to align with their own traits, interests, and beliefs.

“First we get rid of strict typing. What’s next, setting a boolean variable equal to a string?!?”

If you look back at the arguments against interracial marriage, they mirror almost all of the arguments against gay marriage to the letter. Some people are convinced that their world as it exists when they come of age to participate in it is the way it should always be. So my bet is that their deal is they don’t want to learn anything new. Learning can be hard and it’s not always fun to learn and more importantly the global capitalist society constructed for us is not conducive to learning so people are greatly encouraged NOT to learn.

Many programmers that work in Low level languages like Assembly or C regard high level languages as easy or slow and thus tended to dis them.

John Carmack (Doom, Quake engine, considered an amazing programmer) Best Programming Language has a wider appreciation of IDEs and Languages.

The best way to engage them is to ask them about their projects. I usually find them to be very knowledgeable, have a lot to learn from, that you can mix in with your more recent languages.

Win/win beats calling eachother bigot :)