C on Linux or all of Java?

[Matt Graham]

On 2021-01-10 15:52, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> I'm a PHP dev.  I am wondering about the value of learning C on Linux.

C is not generally used for new projects (other than libraries, C 
libraries can work with any other language) these days.  Managing your 
own memory is potentially faster than having things be 
garbage-collected, but it provides an excellent way to shoot yourself in 
the foot because people are bad at managing memory.  It'd teach you how 
much patience you have, and potentially how slow PHP is by comparison, 
but I don't think it'd provide much value in 2021.

> What would you recommend learning C on Linux or all of Java?

Neither.  No one's using Java for anything but Android applications 
now, and Google are trying to push Kotlin for those.  Java is also a 
total PITA as it pretends to be high-level while requiring almost as 
much boilerplate as C does.[0]  wordpress is everywhere, so that'll 
guarantee employment for PHP people despite the language being 
unfashionable.  node.js is everywhere now for reasons which make no 
sense to me.  If you end up having to maintain something half-assedly 
written in node.js, you will need some familiarity with its 
weirdnesses.[1]  If you don't know node.js already, learn that.

IMHO, if you want to learn something old-school, go for C++ not C.  
Classes are sort of useful for real-world problems, and you now have the 
option to use auto_ptr to ease memory management woes.

[0] Java is ~= COBOL translated to the 2000s.
[1] node.js is ~= Perl translated to the 2010s.

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