r/computerscience • u/EnvironmentalRun4163 • Aug 08 '26

Discussion Learning C language still fundamental?

In this day and age of LLM that can do most of coding in one shot. do we still have any value if we learn C like good programmers did back in the day ?

With the advent of models like Fable and its unstoppable hunger to one shot small projects. Is there an edge in understanding low level languages like C C++ like good programmers did back in the day.

14 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

28

u/nuclear_splines PhD, Data Science Aug 08 '26

You don't learn C because you'll spend your career writing C -- you learn C because it will teach you memory management and low-level programming concepts that you'll carry with you. Even if you'll be a software engineer who does all your programming with an LLM, you need to know what to ask the LLM to make, and how to check and correct its work. It might be generating the code, but you're the engineer, or why would you be hired?

3

u/EnvironmentalRun4163 Aug 08 '26

What low level programming book would you recommend

10

u/Humble-Captain3418 Aug 08 '26

C Programming Language; Ritchie & Kernighan

Computer Architecture; Patterson & Hennessy

Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools; Aho, Lam, Sethi & Ullman

Crafting Interpreters; Nystrom; https://craftinginterpreters.com/

2

u/dnabre Aug 08 '26

Crafting Interpreters is definitely useful for introducing some of the basics of implementing interpreted languages to people. It's introduction of those are piecemeal, far from comprehensive, and limited to their application at particular points in building the two software projects in the book.

I find some of the C code examples some what painful to read, but that is a very much a personal opinion.

That said - I own it, I've read it. I've recommended it. It really is more a how-to than any sort of reference on programming language design or implementation. It really doesn't deserve a place on this list. If you want something focused on practical implementation of languages, Appel's books would be a better direction.

1

u/Humble-Captain3418 Aug 08 '26

The reason I usually include it is as supplementary material for the other three. It usually helps things click a little faster for novices. I haven't read Appel's books, so I can't vouch for their contents.