alt Hacker NewsSo Fil-C is competing with Go, C#, typescript and Python. If I’m writing a greenfield project where “bare metal” performance isn’t needed, why would anyone choose Fil-C over a more mature GC language?
C is more verbose and more error prone than Go and C#. It has worse tooling. It’s missing decades of language features. C isn’t properly cross platform. There’s no package manager. The “standard library” isn’t fully standard. It’s full of sharp edges and bad decisions.
I can imagine using Fil-C to run legacy code. But for new projects, it just seems worse in every way compared to Go, C#, typescript and friends. It’s worse, slow, and inconvenient.
Replies
You could use raw C in environments with effective sandboxes, Fil-C in environments without a sandbox.
Or you could write a library that works for Fil-C and C without writing the library twice.
Of the group of languages presented, your argument has more merit for Go. With C# and others, there is an additional OOP argument in there, that splits into different factions.
But what is being overlooked, is the massive numerical dominance of C programmers and projects, along with legacy and embedded code. There is going to be a preference for writing and using C, that could arguably fuel Fil-C for a very long time.