instead of optimizing for the past, i think i'll invest time into optimizing my skills for the future - hopefully one of functional programming, reproducible builds and proven software.
@maxc thanks, i'm not a huge fan of erlang/elixir as a source language - though the BEAM has benefits expressiveness is not a factor in any popular language for the platform.
lisp expands the capabilities expressive syntax while haskell and ml offer so much power at the type level! i can't go back
yes, i'm aware of pre-c languages like b, basic, cobol, algol, fortran, and their iterations, but c has been the eventual legacy of that era - it's compact but offers little help to the programmer.
@jakeisnt agree about c. I think the main benefit is really portability there - you can get pure c89 software running almost anywhere you have enough memory if it's not too os-specific.
... But for most programmers outside of embedded, that's honestly not really so much of a factor, haha.
Just mentioned Erlang because it's often slept on a bit - and compared to c at least the expressiveness is pretty good!
@jakeisnt check out erlang and the associated ecosystem if you haven't already.
C is only part of that retro programming picture, and FP has been around a similarly long time.
Even if you dont end up utilising it directly, can really help to have an idea of what ground has been covered.