cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/52190045
Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase, perhaps by 2030
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/52190045
Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase, perhaps by 2030
Make computers do stuff for what purpose?
I joke to my family that I just name things for a living. When you take away all the incidental stuff like files and pointers and ports, that’s really all it is. “This sequence of events with these properties is called <this>, and when you ask our system what to do about it, it does this other sequence of events with these properties which we call <this other name>.”
It’s kinda like those ancient stone tablets that are the first example of writing, and they’re just like “Ramses owes Jeremiah 5 chickens” or whatever. It’s just how we manage abstract concepts moving around our civilization. Yeah there’s math involved, but every endpoint is a human being in one way or another.
For whatever task you’re trying to get them to do. Predict the weather, solve an equation, format a document, etc. Computers can do useful things. We program them so that they do those things.
This is the most ELI5 thing I’ve ever written. If you actually understand programming and you don’t realise that it exists to make computers do things then you’re surely just being deliberately obtuse.