
Brian Kernighan on C [video] - kozukumi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de2Hsvxaf8M
======
faragon
Compare how thin is the C book from Kernighan vs the C++ book from Stroustrup.
The result is that most people can fully understand C easily (if willing to),
while the C++ case is impossible.

C is beautiful.

~~~
shepardrtc
You should check out the new version of the C++ book by Stroustrup. After
having stayed away from C++ exactly for the reason you speak of for probably
15 years, I gave it another try. I was very impressed at how C++ has changed
with 11/14\. Stroustrup had to essentially rewrite the book.

Of course if you're simply comparing size, keep in mind that Stroustrup's book
is aimed at beginners. And provides a thorough discussion of many things in
the language. The C book is terse and not really aimed at beginners or
students.

~~~
Someone
A more fair comparison: the drafts of the ISO C and ISO C++ standards on my
system (both from 2011) are 701 respectively 1325 pages, of which 180
respectively 410 describe the language, and the remainder the support library.

That difference isn't as large as I would have expected. Part of that may be
style or formatting; C++ seems to have about a third more lines per page and
smaller text, so I guesstimate it has about 50% more text per page. Looking at
the descriptions of the preprocessor that seems about right; C needs 19 pages
to do that, while C++ manages it in 13.

That would make the C++ language description about 3 times as long as that of
C.

~~~
gjm11
The difficulty of learning and using a programming language increases (all
else being equal[1]) faster than linearly with the size of its spec, because
much of the pain comes from the interaction of one feature with another.

If we handwavily suppose that difficulty goes like size squared (perhaps every
_pair_ of features generates a possible interaction you have to understand)
then a description 3x longer makes for a language more like 10x harder.
[EDITED to add:] Which feels about right to me for the relationship between C
and C++.

[1] Of course there are exceptions; some "Turing tarpit" languages like
Brainfuck can be completely specified with very little text, but are difficult
to do anything useful with because they are stripped so very bare.

------
sago
I love his wristwatch, just perfect.

I hope there's more of this interview computerphile will release in due
course. It is a fascinating time to hear about from the guys who --
essentially -- engineered our profession.

~~~
markcerqueira
I was fortunate enough to take a course taught by Brian Kernighan. Each
lecture was a gem in and of itself. Lots of stories about his work at Bell
Labs and how things came to be the way they are today. Professor Kernighan is
also a great guy who is extremely personable and had every student's name
learned by the second week.

Absolutely impressive human being all around!

~~~
kozukumi
He comes across as a great guy in all the interviews I have seen of him.
Chilled but still excited about the amazing things he has worked on.

On a related note I absolutely _love_ the Computerphile videos with Professor
Brailsford. I could listen to that guy talk all day.

