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30 March 2018

Just a thought about programming languages

by Linus Probert

So, I’ve been writing a lot of C lately. Coming from a background of almost only coding in object oriented languages I had a feeling in the back of my mind that the project would eventually get disorganized and chaotic. But, partly due to my fear of this ever happening it never did.

I structured my code in a manner that I picked up from the gnome-todo project where one would almost simulate classes through files and their included functions.

Thanks to this I still find my game rather structured when looking at the code and making changes. Sure it won’t be extended to anything else but a game any time soon. But I think that is besides the point. All this lead me to think about java, and how many java programmers I know find languages that aren’t object oriented, daunting. When in fact I came to the realization that it all comes down to discipline. Sure, some languages (C included) will allow you to make quick hacks that might solve a problem but gradually as the hacks become more frequent they will cause the code quality and maintainability to decay in the project. In contrary to staying disciplined. Doing things according to the rules you or the project manager set up and not taking shortcuts.

Having a solid background in Java development I came to the conclusion that a lot of the design decisions and restrictions in Java are put there in order to prevent developers from being stupid. This might not be true at all, but I can’t help thinking that there is some merit to my thought.

It’s funny to think that many of the popular programming languages are designed to protect developers from ruining the project. :D

Anywho, this isn’t a massive epiphany in any way. It’s just me ranting and nobody reading :P

Until next time, // Liq

tags: java - C - programming - code - OOP