
Ask HN: Do CS students enjoy C anymore? - davidu
We hire C developers at OpenDNS.  Most often, we hire them from some other company where they have been working for the better part of a decade.<p>They are computer scientists and they are very smart.<p>But we also like to hire students graduating from college.  It's rare for us to find a CS graduate who knows C, let alone one who enjoys writing in C.<p>Apparently most CS is taught in Java and Python these days, with one or two courses in algorithms or operating systems.  There seems to be only a few classes where C is involved.<p>Is this because teachers don't like teaching in C?  Or because students prefer the speed of development of a language like Python or Java?  Where are the students who do like C?  Where can I find those guys (and girls)?
======
larsberg
Many universities now offer a course using the Computer Systems: A
Programmer's Perspective book (<http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/index.html>). This is
a fantastic book, focusing on nit-picky assembly and C-level work -- all the
foundational stuff for an operating systems or compilers class, even if you
never go on to one. Having TA'd this class the last few years, I find most
students really enjoy it.

In fact, I think most of the HN crowd would greatly enjoy the "bomb lab"
(<http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/public/1e/labs.html> \-- you can read the writeup
but not get the source). The idea is that you have a binary and have to use
gdb and some nice dumping tools to "defuse" a bunch of stages of the program,
each with increasing difficulty. It's a fabulous exercise, and really makes
students pick up a deep appreciation for stepping through assembly and data
structures that are just lying around in memory.

~~~
hello_moto
I used that book 5 years ago (2nd year system course). I love it (except the
part where it teaches some weird language called HL or something...)

I love the bomb lab exercise! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!

At my university, we split the book into two courses if I'm not mistaken. We
moved away from a typical OS book (Albert S., Andy T., Stalling, type of book)
to this.

There are side effects though. The MOS, OS Concept, OS Concepts + Internals
book have a typical path of teaching OS while this book merged the OS and
hardware knowledge.

~~~
raffi
I really believe that hacking is a good way to get students excited about
systems programming and working at the systems level. I also noticed a stack
smashing lab. Good stuff.

~~~
hello_moto
Definitely, it's more like a game for me.

------
elbenshira
I'm a CS student. Do I enjoy C? Yes, I enjoy C much more than C++ or x86. But
why would I use C when Python or Java will suffice for most things? Of course,
I pulled out C for OS and C++ for graphics and robotics, but most of what I do
does not require being this close to the hardware.

I find C to be an elegant language. But we have so many other things to worry
about, like the algorithms, data structures, security, concurrency, etc. If a
language can help me with things like memory leaking and segfaults, then of
course I'll go with that language over C. I have so many other things to focus
on.

~~~
p4bl0
So I don't need to write it. Thanks :-).

------
phamilton
Computer Engineers love C. We build embedded systems in it, write an RTOS,
optimize code for cache coherency, reverse engineer binary bombs, develop for
FPGAs. More C means less assembly.

We love this stuff.

~~~
TimMontague
I second that. I didn't have an appreciation for C until I took a few college
classes that focused on developing relatively complex embedded systems in
assembly -- now I really, really like C.

------
Locke1689
_Apparently most CS is taught in Java and Python these days, with one or two
courses in algorithms or operating systems. There seems to be only a few
classes where C is involved._

These are bad schools. I'm really not willing to compromise on this statement.

 _Is this because teachers don't like teaching in C? Or because students
prefer the speed of development of a language like Python or Java? Where are
the students who do like C? Where can I find those guys (and girls)?_

It's because C and systems are inherently hard and cannot be made... not. When
your libraries are limitless your programming exercises can be made as trivial
as possible.

I also always choose C if companies let me choose my language during
interviews. I can fit the entire C language and its libraries into my brain
all at once with no reference manuals.

C++? I don't think I could get everything even if I had the specification and
Bjarne himself standing next to me.

~~~
adammichaelc
"These are bad schools."

These are 95% of schools.

------
metamemetics
You could hire Computer Engineering instead of Computer Science majors, they
usually all know C well even if they practiced it in relation to
hardware\embedded systems.

[at UIUC everyone does C++ Data Structures, but CS starts with Java, CE starts
with C ]

~~~
Pyrodogg
Ditto.

CompE graduate here, my C education was almost exclusive to microcontrollers.
The only other class that focused on C was the operating systems class. Both
were fairly low-level in their respective areas.

------
strlen
Look for schools that teach primarily in C. At least when I was a student,
Santa Clara University (Computer Science and Engineering department, then two
departments: "Computer Science/Math" and "Computer Engineering") did that
(with the exception of one Haskell-based course and several courses which gave
students a choice of language to use). Not sure if it's still the case.

My local community college (where I started) - De Anza College did that as
well. I am sure there are many others, just they may not be the most well
known ones.

Not all the top graduates will want to go into systems programming, however.
Great chunk of user-level systems programming (e.g., network services,
distributed systems) is also being done in languages other than C. I suspect,
many no longer view having real-world C experience (as opposed to just knowing
it) as imperative for their career.

That said, I am not sure exactly what level of C proficiency are you looking
for. I am guessing, strong knowledge of UNIX Systems Programming (IPC,
interfacing with the VM, etc...) and BSD sockets? You can only learn this
through experience and/or working meticulously, through Richard Stevens' books
(I _highly_ recommend the former, even if you don't intend to touch C again).
You can't expect to hire people with that knowledge straight out of college,
but you can hire students with "good C programming ability and strong
understanding of operating systems internals, who are interested in learning
systems/network programming" (to put in terms of a job description) i.e., they
should know what producer/consume problem is, but they may not always know all
about UNIX signals, IPC mechanisms and the Linux VM.

[Edit]

Others have suggested to look for students who took an operating systems
course. That's likely the best bet.

------
catechu
Students who've taken systems programming classes (e.g. Operating Systems)
would be your best bet -- in my experience, most low-level programming is
shafted to those classes, except in the cases where a professor arbitrarily
requires C, which doesn't necessarily happen in algorithms classes either.

But even better would be to find students who hack on open-source projects
written in C (e.g. Linux-related efforts) -- that's much more representative
of a graduating student's ability to be productive using C. There are a lot of
students working on such projects, and it might be worth starting there.

------
smackfu
Did anyone ever enjoy writing C, especially data structures?

Here is what I remember from college:

./program

Segmentation fault.

~~~
elbenshira
I found most of my segfault bugs by a simple "gdb program". It's scary at
first, but it's usually not that hard.

~~~
eqdw
GDB. God's gift to programmers

~~~
mahmud
the Old Testament God, to be exact.

------
barmstrong
It's becoming less common just like programmers who love assembly language are
becoming less common.

The entire history of CS could be summed up as a move towards higher and
higher levels of abstraction. They still expose you to assembly language in
good CS programs as sort of a history lesson or to give you a deeper
understanding of how it works underneath, but that doesn't mean people
actually want to use it.

C is of course nowhere near as far along that path as assembly language, but
it's a spectrum and seems to moving in that direction.

------
leif
Come to Stony Brook, and talk to Erez Zadok. He is the creator of unionfs, he
teaches (undergrad) Advanced Systems Programming in UNIX/C, and (grad)
Operating Systems, and runs a lab devoted to (mostly) Linux filesystems.
NetApp, Data Domain, and other high-profile storage companies (maybe you know
Riverbed?) regularly hire his students for their knowledge of operating
systems and C.

His class is why I love C, and you'll find many more like me if you come talk
to him.

------
tseabrooks
I'm 26 and finished my M.S. in CompSci a couple years ago. All of my friends I
graduated with from my under grad Love writing C and C++. Most of us ended up
in jobs doing C and/or C++ for a living. I think a lot of this has to do with
our 'upbringing'...

We went to a super small university (1500 people) and we got to do summer
internships and independent study course work with one of our professors
writing/modifying embedded wireless drivers in NetBSD. This resulted in a
group of students that were more proficient at reading and understanding huge
bodies of existing code when compared to students I've TA'd and worked with.
This also means we all enjoy working in C (Though honestly most of us prefer
C++). We work in jobs like embedded GPS devices. Embedded development for
Televisions. Jet engine test software. Embedded signal / sensor processing and
integration. It's only now, later on in life, that I realize most of the other
people in these fields with us aren't CS guys but rather CE or EE.

tl;dr... Find a student, just 1, that is really into this and then find more
students from his university... It's likely the environment / layout of the
university's program is largely responsible.

------
cprussin
Come to Virginia Tech. Our entire linux/unix user's group is C crazy, we have
a resume CD, and most of us are pretty intelligent people.

~~~
maukdaddy
When I was a CS undergrad at VT (1998-2000) all CS classes were taught in C++.

~~~
jimmyswimmy
Go Hokies! I was there same time.

Anyway to echo a bunch of others' comments, EE and CompE's like C. It's great
for embedded work. If you find one of us who prefer programming to building
stuff, you will be very happy with our understanding of C. On top of which we
tend to like to write efficient code (i.e. fast and/or low memory footprint)
because we are used to having K's of memory rather than M's or G's.

------
russell_h
We (I'm a senior at Oregon State University) use C in classes more than any
other language and I, for one, love it. I know a lot of students don't, but
most of them at least have some idea whats going on.

Also the ECE ("Electrical and Computer Engineering") students here (and
probably elsewhere) use a lot of C, so that might be something else to look
into, although they're mostly familiar with embedded environments.

Maybe this goes without saying, but no one here (to my knowledge) gets very
in-depth into a lot of stuff you might take for granted, for example I haven't
met a single student (or many professors) who is familiar with mmap(). There
are a lot of really smart students who could probably work out great with a
few months of real-world experience and mentoring, but students who could sit
down and work on production C code right out of graduation are probably less
than 1 in 100.

------
balgarath
Long-time lurker, this is my first post to HN.

My school(Tennessee Technological University, graduated a year and a half ago)
still requires a semester of C/C++...there were a couple other classes where
you needed to know it to interpret the professor's example code, but were
allowed to code in other languages if you wanted. I enjoy C, but feel more
proficient in other languages as far as getting things done quickly. I guess I
just don't use C enough to keep a good grasp of it.

I think students would get more benefit out of being forced to only use C(and
assembly?) for the first couple years. It would help them get a better
understanding of what the higher-level languages have going on under the hood.

I've been doing web development(Ruby) the past few years. I've played around
with extending Ruby with C, but not much.

If you are looking to hire, I might be interested...its about time for a
change-up in my life.

------
_delirium
It's been a long time since it had a large role in CS curricula outside of
operating systems / embedded stuff, I think. The intro classes when I was a
freshman (2000) were transitioning to Java, but from Pascal, not C. The
industry-focused classes (software engineering, etc.) all used C++.

I think I would personally have disliked C if college were my first
introduction to it, because I associated it with curmudgeonly systems
professors and a sort of harder-core-than-thou attitude. But for some odd
reason I had already learned C in high school (I think I picked it randomly),
and it's a perfectly enjoyable language to use, without the cultural baggage.
You can even write things other than schedulers in it!

------
hendler
As a teaching language, I did enjoy C. I didn't know C when I was studying CS,
and until then I used higher level languages that did all sorts of
inexplicable things. C was the one layer above assembly that made sense, and
helped highlight when something was really a hardware issue versus an
algorithmic issue. (eg. limitations of mmap and fseek in relation to database
performance)

For production, I wish I had the time or need to optimize code I write, but
too often, a server upgrade and reconfiguration is sufficient. At least I
depend on some one else writing something great in C (linux, nginx, etc).

Been looking at GoLang and Clang to make the experience a little less painful.

------
scumola
I've written a bunch of PHP, Perl, SQL stuff, but always down-shift into C or
C++ (mostly C though) when performance or command-line tools need to be
efficient. I wrote a multi-threadded crawler in C because using perl or shell
scripts wrapped with xargs is not very efficient. I love working with C mainly
because I grew up writing C code and I find it very convenient. I have a
favorite debugger. I love using linked lists. I think that constructing a
complex in-memory data structure to make a program run efficiently is an art
form. Also, I believe that using BerkeleyDB is also a much better option for a
database from a programming aspect. BerkeleyDB (like C) has been around for
ever, it's fast, it has low-overhead, and it does things just as good as any
other key/value database (if not better because it's so mature). Using older,
more proven technologies is slowly becoming my overall programming philosophy.
I'm not a new graduate, but I still feel that these methodologies are much
better in many circumstances than the newer tools that are all the rage when
performance and reliability are an issue. Sometimes, I even re-code regexps
using pcre in C to make them fast if they're a bottleneck so I can squeeze
some more performance out of my code. When I'm prototyping something, I still
revert back to perl or php though - they're great for quick and dirty tasks
still.

------
mgrouchy
I'm not sure where you find these people, generally you will find the small
subset of students who do projects outside of class work generally work on the
web because these are things that can be most easily shared with peers.

In my university, we did mostly Java(that was the "teaching language" that is
used), I only did 3 courses that were primarily taught in C and there were
only around 2 more courses that required C.

So what generally happens to most CS students is that they teach you Java in
your first year and then any course where they tell you to use whatever
language you prefer they choose Java, because thats what they are comfortable
with and they have assignment/project deadlines looming, so they don't feel
they have time to experiment in a new language.

Your best bet is to hire workterm/Internship students whom you can Train. It
might seem like a waste, but its a real cheap way to get an idea of how good
the person is, you get them early enough to train some bad habits out of
them(if they exist) and evaluate whether they would be a good fit for your
company. They also may accomplish something awesome along the way?

I did a 16 month internship before I graduated from University(which was
really an 8 month extended to 16 month), most students like myself set up
these internships in a way that after the internship they only have 1 semester
of classes remaining, so they can ideally work part time with the company they
internet with for that final 4 months and hopefully turn their internship into
a fulltime Job upon completion.

------
mdwrigh2
As a Junior in CSC right now, and while I have to say the speed of development
in languages like Python and Ruby really appeals to me, I do enjoy C
development as well. Unfortunately I usually have to optimize for development
time rather than anything else, so outside of a few classes (for example,
Algorithms, were execution time was a competition), I end up picking the
"highest"-level language. But I think most schools are avoiding C, outside of
specific classes (whose goal is to teach C or something C related), because
students get caught up in the complexity of C, and the difficulty of debugging
it vs. a memory managed language, so they'd rather just avoid it and focus the
class on the topic it's supposed to cover.

On the other hand, I know a few people who want to solely work in C because it
allows them so much control over how things work, and they're capable of
understanding how each and every call they make will basically function. You
typically have to look pretty hard for these people specifically, but I find
the ones I know are some of the best programmers around. If you're curious
about getting in touch with some (I know at least two that I would /highly/
recommend, are looking for summer internships), ping me at mdwrigh2@ncsu.edu

------
meinhimmel
Engineering courses give a basic overview of writing in C, but that's about it
at my school. I haven't taken those courses since I'm not an engineering
major, but I helped my friends with the material.

Most of my programming courses are taught in Java. I've brought it up to the
faculty though about moving us away from being a Java school. The issue that
they presented was that the teachers may not be as familiar with C/C++ as they
are with Java. My reasoning behind all of it being that Java is not a good
learning language since it adds too much abstraction to get a good idea for
what your code is actually doing (i.e. memory).

It doesn't particularly matter though as students who are interested in
programming will learn what they want on the side.

For your situation though, I'd avoid people who classify themselves as being a
'Java/Python/C programmer'. There are too many languages and too many problems
to limit yourself to merely one or two languages. A good programmer will be
familiar with at least a few languages and be able to pick up a new
language/framework quickly. Basically it breaks down to simply finding someone
who has an interest in programming.

Also, I like C.

------
doki_pen
I learned C as my first language when I was young. I would never say that I
was good at it. I've written a few Ruby extensions in C, but nothing I would
be proud to show people. I've also hacked a few Linux drivers, but nothing to
write home about. Very trivial stuff like adding vendorIds or applying patches
that required some work.

I like C, but I haven't invested much time in it because it seems that the job
market isn't that good for C programmers. Maybe I'm completely mistaken, but
it seems like I couldn't hope to compete with a lot of the guys who have been
doing it for 10+ years. I wouldn't even feel comfortable applying for a
position that was primarily C.

That said, if someone offered me a job that was primarily C I wouldn't
definitely consider it. And I'm sure if they have the patients, I would end up
being a good team member. But web development is where my experience lies and
it is where I will continue to pursue jobs. As a self taught programmer, the
barrier to entry with web development seemed much lower when I was starting
out. Again, that could be my own misconception.

------
xyzzyz
They teach quite a lot of languages at my university. You can choose between
Pascal and OCaml for the first programming course. Half a year later, you are
supposed to write middle sized projects in Delphi and Java. Second-year
student learns C++, and then chooses between further C++, Python, C# or
CUDA/OpenCL classes. C is used in Operating Systems courses, Oracle and
PostgreSQL on Databases, PHP, Javascript (JQuery) and Python (Django) on Web
Applications. Prolog, Smalltalk and Haskell are used in Compilers classes.
Students use language of choice on Team Programming Project.

These are all obligatory, one can additionally attend optional courses on
Prolog, Dylan, Common Lisp and some other I do not recall now.

So yeah, learning C better would take time needed for all these courses and
thus would narrow one's view. From my experience, most people do not like to
use C for anything other than Algorithms classes, and even then they are more
likely to use C + STL than plain C. Those who do can take Advanced Operating
Systems classes and tinker with Linux kernel, or Microcontroller Programming.

------
jonafato
My university uses Java as the main teaching language. A few courses down the
line (OS, Security) tend to use C, but it does certainly depend on the
instructor. It seems to me that instructors shy away from C when they know
students will likely have little experience with it. They don't want to be
bothered with teaching students what a pointer is because it will take away
from the actual material of the course.

That said, I personally enjoy using C when it seems to be appropriate. I would
much rather write a piece of OS code in C and drop it into a linux distro than
using Java to do something that would rarely be used in the real world. I've
had problems with C that I wouldn't in a language like python, but if the task
is better suited for C, I'd rather work through those problems and learn
because of it. My personal opinion of students not learning C because it's
hard is that they don't belong in a CS program. If you won't take the time to
learn the best tool for the job, you won't do the job right, and no one will
have benefitted because of it.

------
Jach
My college teaches nothing but C, C++, and Assembly. (Okay, they do have an
Actionscript class for designers and encourage messing with Lua...)
Fortunately for me I've drunk the high-level kool-aid in web design and
application dev for a long time, have read about half of SICP, and so I really
prefer Python (or another high level language) over C or C++. But I don't mind
C... c89 bugs me with its quirks (I really like "for(int i = 0;)", c99 is
fairly enjoyable, more so than C++. C++ is psychotic; I really don't know why
you would start a new project in that language...

In my side Python projects, if I need speed, I'll write that part in C and
compile it to an SO and call it from Python. Nice and painless, easy to port
by just compiling 32-bit, 64-bit, dlls and if I care Mac's thing, more
enjoyable than pseudo-pythonic libs like pyrex.

I'd suggest looking for computer engineering students if you want people that
know C. I'm in the CE program here, but it's almost as much CS as it is CE.

------
BuckToBid
I just had an submission hit the front page the other day where I explained
how moving from PHP/Apache to C saved my bacon. I'm 26 and have not been out
of school that long.

I would look for schools who start their students in C or even C++ right off
the bat. I know some people who took intro to programming in Java and would
never learn C now, not sure why.

------
whimsy
I'm a senior CS undergrad at UCSC.

C is used often here in upper divisions for Algorithms, Compilers, and
Operating Systems at the very least. I suspect it's used anywhere that theory
is deemed very important, because it forces you to understand the theory.

Personally, I don't like coding in it, though I think it's very important to
learn in it - it forces you to learn how to do many things at the level of
memory management. Learning how to make linked lists in C taught me a lot, for
example, and ensuring that my program had no memory leaks also taught me a
lot.

On the other hand, this is 2010 and there are programming languages that do
memory management for you. Managing memory when you're doing relatively
abstract stuff (in most cases) isn't fun OR elegant - it's just tedious.
jdietrich talks about this some in another contemporary thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1830120>

Therefore, I prefer Python - I don't want to program embedded systems.

\--

Right now, I'm of the opinion that I ought to be language agnostic. However,
I'm also of the opinion that I should know at least two programming languages
very well:

I should know one high level language to Get Stuff Done quickly without
worrying about tedious stuff like memory management - in these cases,
performance is a secondary concern; modern computers are very powerful, and
it's much more cost effective to simply write it quickly. Compilers are much
better than I am at optimization, and they can do a lot, so why not leave it
to them? For this, I've selected Python; I'm working on getting familiar with
its many libraries.

I should also know one low-level language for things where performance is
critically important, and it's worthwhile to take the extra time to calculate
things like that. For this, I'm currently using C, but I plan on switching to
Lisp.

------
arghnoname
Some Universities require more classes in C than others. You could go to the
course listings of Universities you might like to recruit from and go after
graduates from those programs.

With one decent CS school that I am aware of, the University of Maryland used
to require (until last semester or so) all CS graduates to take two lower
level classes which are taught in C (with some asm). Now it is just one
course. I don't know whether or not students enjoyed it, though I think it is
unfortunate that they are dropping one of the two courses (actually combining
both into one course.)

I think part of why there is this move away from C is some students
(rightfully) complain that they may never need to explicitly use it, and
Universities figure they can teach the concepts with other languages. I
believe that lower level languages should be taught, but I understand why not
everyone agrees with me.

------
_corbett
I first started programming in college (late bloomer) and learned lisp,
python, java, ruby and a smattering of other languages in class/internships
and have taught java at the intro level. Java is a difficult language IMO to
teach as a first programming language as concepts are often obscured by
syntax, and I imagine the same to be true to an even greater extent for C.

I did a bit of lower level stuff for OS/algorithms courses in undergrad but
first did C/C++ extensively during my Master's and now my PhD (and Objective C
for side projects but that's another story). I love the C/C++ work I do as
when I write in C/C++ vs. say python speed is the key issue so I'm doing much
more work on algorithm design and parallelization.

For a new grad if they are into the work and a partially seasoned programmer,
they'll learn on the job if they don't hack C already.

------
jbarham
Even when I studied CS in the mid-90's at the University of Toronto, taking a
course in C programming was optional, either as part of a survey of languages
course, or in the upper level OS courses where C is still the obvious choice.

Otherwise, writing C programs has been called a "historical reenactment"
(<http://research.swtch.com/2008/03/rotating-hashes.html>) and I think for
most working programmers this is accurate.

It helps to know some C or C++ if you're using scripting languages like Python
or Ruby in order to wrap 3rd party C libraries, but wrapper generators like
SWIG will do 99% of the work for you, and what little C code you might have to
write by hand doesn't need to be particularly fluent or idiomatic.

------
adamrichardson
I am a CS student in my last semester and in my operating systems class we
have been required to do all of our assignments in C, we also are targeting
minix. This has really given me a love for C and made me much more comfortable
with programming in any language. C skills are a must!

------
merijnv
MSc CS student here.

As some others have mentioned, I _love_ doing stuff in C. However, I'm also
keenly aware of its pitfalls and shortcomings. As such I prefer to do most my
stuff in higher level languages like Python and Haskell only dropping to C for
speedy data structures (if profiling proofs it necessary) or for convenience
when doing low level OS code.

However, I know a lot of my fellow students have an extreme dislike for C and
only wanting to program in languages like Java/C#, even languages like Python
and Ruby seem under represented.

The students who seem to appreciate systems level code and C seem to be a
minority in my university. Which of course means there is more competition to
hire these students when it comes to people looking for C developers.

------
icco
I'm a computer science student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Our department is
very focused on C, and we do a lot of embeded and Operating Systems level C. I
love it as a language, and I think that is partially due to the amount we use
it in our classes.

~~~
davidu
Good to know. I'll up my recruiting there.

------
jhferris3
I'm a CS student over in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon. While the intro
courses are currently in java (and transitioning to an in-house pared-down C)
Our 2nd year systems course is taught in C using the "Computer Systems:A
programmers perspective" book (its actually written here), and our OS class is
in C, while the other upper level systems electives use C++ for the most part.
Come out to CMU and you'll find plenty of C lovers and systems hackers. Our OS
class kicks your ass when it comes to OS level stuff and use of
C/pointers/stuff. I don't know anyone who got B or better in that class and
came out of it a novice with respect to C.

------
Rantenki
There are some people that enjoy being tied up and whipped too, and those who
wear "hair-shirts" to show that they are noble for all their suffering.

More than enjoying C as a language, you should find people who can identify
when it is, or is not, the correct tool for the job. If you hire people solely
because they enjoy C, you may find that "when all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail".

Putting my money where my mouth is, I have written more C++ in the last month
than during the previous decade, because I am doing a lot of node.js work. I
am writing code in C++ that speeds up or makes possible the things I want to
do in Node. Nothing more.

------
tialys
I carry around my copy of K&R like it's my bible. Learning C really opened up
programming in general for me. I love it. Here at school though, we're never
required to write pure C code. We learn C++ (as it's own class! Yuck.) and use
it for data structures, but other than that it's not required anywhere either.
It's all Java and Python, and most people here can't be bothered to learn a
new language. I've probably got more to learn about C before I'm at the level
of the people you hire, but if you think you might be hiring in May, I'll be
graduating soon! ;)

------
younata
Freshman in CS here. I came in knowing python and C. My uni teaches java for
the first three classes (luckily I tested out of the first class), then we're
taught c++. We have an OS class that (should, I haven't looked into it) uses
C, probably c++.

I personally love C. It's a much smaller language than java, the libraries
actually make sense (reading input into a string comes with stdio, as opposed
to having to import java.util.Scanner).

I also feel that everything I'm asked to do in java, I can easily do in C with
less code. However, this is because I'm more familiar with C than I am with
java.

------
vishaldpatel
I liked C! =). I finished my undergrad in 2006 - also went to community
college before finishing my degree. I learned C in community college - it was
a prerequisite to all other programing classes (unlike university, where I
wrote all my algorithms assignments in python).

We also learned C# later on in college, and there was always this, "this new
thing is nice and shiny but C rocks" feeling among a lot of people in my
class.

Also, most of the people (since it was community college) weren't your
typical, "I've always wanted to be a computer programmer/scientist/engineer"
types.

------
InclinedPlane
Part of the problem is that colleges don't think of software engineering as
important, because it's all about "computer science" (not that they teach that
very well either). The result is that students end up missing out on a lot of
important skills necessary for programming effectively. Skills that are more
necessary in C because it's filled with so many different ways to cut off your
own arms and legs if you aren't careful. If schools taught better practices
and conventions to students they'd probably be plenty happy with C.

------
timthorn
Try looking for Electronic Engineering grads. I may be a few years out of
date, but it certainly used to be the case in my experience that they get more
C level coding than those from the CS world.

~~~
wickedchicken
EEs are taught C with Matlab as a distant second

------
zacwitte
I enjoy C because I like strongly typed languages, explicit code as apposed to
ambiguous typeless languages. I haven't, however, found many companies hiring
C programmers. I've been working for web startups in San Francisco for a while
and have talked with a lot of developers at events and it seems to me that
there is less and less focus on optimization in general, which is why there is
less interest in C. The fact is that C becomes less relevant by the day. Rails
and python developers are in high demand - C not so much.

------
staktrace
The Software Engineering program at the University of Waterloo (where I did my
undergrad and am currently doing my masters). One of their first-term courses
(CS 137) is in C. They used to have Java, but apparently the powers that be
decided C was a better language to get started with. Although for your real
question - where to find a graduate who _enjoys_ writing in C - I don't have a
general answer. I know that personally I enjoy writing clean C more than most
languages.

------
elai
At my university, C is used when applicable, like graphics or OS courses. Some
courses are Java, my compilers course uses C# (you make compiler for a subset
of C#, c-flat, as part of course), others use a variety of languages. A lot of
guys that are into iPhone development will know C from Objective-C.

C is nice, but you feel the datedness of the standard libraries, some basic
operations such as string manipulation and what not is more work and verbosity
than it should be.

------
jdoliner
I'm a very recent graduate and I enjoy using C. C was used in almost every
class I took in college. Normally these days I use C++ but I still tend to
default to Cesque solutions. It's nice having a language that you can fit in
your head all at the same time (or pretty close). If you guys are desperate to
hire C programmers I can give you a small tip that pretty much any CS
undergrad from UChicago should have learned to like C by graduation.

------
freshrap6
I think students aren't offered the opportunity to see what a language like C
can do for them. Their are plenty of examples of cool webapps and mobile apps
out there for them to see. C isn't sexy anymore. I enjoy C because I like
working close to the machine level, without having to do assembly. Not a lot
of people want to code up apps for hardware anymore. It's all about webapps
and mobile apps right now, and this is what they see.

------
eqdw
My university loves Java. C is taught in a few low-level courses but it's not
typical. Hell, within 10 years I bet they stop even teaching pointers.

I really like C. Sure it's not as sleek and sexy as Ruby (My uni uses ruby
over python), but, it's fast, and it does what you tell it, and nothing more.
I actually am really interested in low level systems programming, but
unfortunately it's not easy to get experience on that short of being employed
in it.

------
pyeek
One issue I don't see raised in the comments so far is the fact that OO seem
to be all the rage (at least when you're a college student anyway) and often
you move onto C++ or Java fairly early in the curriculum.

I love coding in C and my first job out of college was C for mobile devices. I
have since moved to web programming and rarely use C directly (closest I get
is Imagemagick with bindings)

------
drdo
I find it very odd that CS graduates don't know C. I don't find it odd that
people don't enjoy programming in C.

At my univ the introductory programming course is taught using Scheme but
there are plenty of course that use C, such as Algorithms and Data Structures
and Operating Systems. Hell we even have a course that uses assembly (Computer
Architecture). This is all on the undergrad degree.

------
z0r
There's quite a bit of C / C++ in the curriculum at Waterloo, although many of
the courses that accept assignments in C++ also accept Java submissions so I
don't know the actual breakdown of what students choose to submit most of
their code in. I chose to write all my assignments in C (or very minimal C++)
whenever possible. I might be a sick individual though.

------
fshaun
"CS" is broad; targeting specialties within the program may work better. I
used tons of C for operating systems and networking lab courses, but I had
friends focusing on (for instance) HCI or AI who rarely touched it.

Also consider looking at physics and aero-astro majors. Lots of embedded or
algorithmic work, so I hypothesize lower level languages like C are more
common.

------
vivekn
I am an EE student but with a lot of interest in CS . I personally am no big
fan of C,despite the fact that most of the courses are in C . It is kind of
cool when working on compilers or embedded systems but for anything else I
would any day prefer something like Python or Haskell - the speed of
development and the fun involved being the two main reasons.

------
javanix
I loved C when I was in college. Unfortunately, the university I attended had
a CS department that required both a lot of time, and Java for most
coursework, so I didn't get to do it enough. Hence, applying for jobs with C
in mind wasn't really an option unless I could impress upon someone my desire
to learn it.

------
mcarrano
I'm a student at Stevens Institute of Technology...

As an introductory language, you are taught Java but when you move up to
higher level courses such as Algorithms, Data Structures, etc you will us C.

I've also taught myself C++ and I prefer it over C but I have no issue working
in any language provided I learn the syntax.

------
dtwwtd
At the University of Michigan, our classes are taught in C++ although the
early courses teach C data structures before allowing us to use things like
classes or the STL.

There are a handful of classes taught using other languages (Java, Python) but
for the most part we're all C/C++

------
rscott
I enjoy it and I graduated less than a year ago, though I am an EE, not CS
grad. Perhaps look at the CE/EE crowd a bit more in depth. Where I went to
school (large Big-10 engineering program), we were required at least one C
course, with more as electives.

------
gte910h
Georgia Tech still teaches a 2nd year course on C:

CS 2110 - Computer Organiz&Program An introduction to basic computer hardware,
machine language, assembly language, and C programming.

4.000 Credit Hours 3.000 Lecture hours 3.000 Lab hours

Course Attributes: Tech Elect CS, Engr, &Sciences

------
jlao
Current CMU student here. All students are required to 15-123 (Introduction to
C & Unix), 15-213 (Introduction to Systems) and another low level systems
course of your choice (which to my knowledge almost all require C and/or x86
assembly).

------
jchonphoenix
I go to Carnegie Mellon. I extremely enjoy C. The best programmers at CMU
enjoy C. Granted, I'd rather program in Python, but I still really really like
C as a language and use it whenever I can.

------
thedangler
I enjoyed it. Now i'm working for a web company and have lost touch with it.
Really want to get back into it.

------
thwarted
I took C the last semester it was offered for CSC101 before the university
switched to C++. That was 1994.

------
goalieca
try hiring electrical/computer engineering students. C is a high level
language for us :P

------
DTrejo
I had a lot of fun writing some MIPS assembly last night (I'm a sophomore in
CS).

------
andylei
harvard's intro CS class is still taught in C. most of the CS majors there who
do systems related stuff write in and enjoy C.

------
sid0
At my college every CS student is expected to pick C up on his own time. I
knew how to program in C long before I entered college -- however, I really
dislike non-GC environments in general.

------
wmil
These days C is a hard language to learn. The best way to learn a new language
is to start a small project in it.

C isn't really appropriate for most small projects.

