how relevant is C today?

[Mirco Wahab]

Hi John

> Because of my 'novice-ness' in programming, I had always thought that C 
> was replaced by C++ and wasn't really used anymore today. I know that's 
> not the case at all now, but I'm still curious how much C is used 
> anymore in programming today, and what purpose it serves. 

There is a whole spectrum of 'mixing' between features of
C ans C++ used today in the industry and thats o.k. if it
just works. You cal write plain C in a C++ environment,
mix some C++ features to your otherwise plain C and
so on - as you like.

You can't compare C/C++'industrial use w/Python's in todays
Software production - there is no match.

A recent 580+ people survey (O'Reilly) brought up the following:
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/12/02/onlamp_survey_results.html?page=2

"The Dice" (find tech jobs) has offerings
(last 7 days, U.S. + unrestricted) for:
   *SQL     14,322
   C/C++    11,968
   Java     10,143
   ...
   Perl      3,332
   PHP         730
  *Python*     503
   Fortran     119
   Ruby        108
   open*gl      66

That is what the industry looks for.
You understand the ratios?

> ... Is it used for 
> actual application programming, or is its use more for something like 
> extending Python? Would it help for a newbie to learn C for any reason?

It is used for almost everything, from
- Programming the Python Language itself,
- Programming the Perl Language itself,
- Programming the PHP language and others,
to
- complete Applications, as you said.

It *is* somehow 'wordy' (especially C), but
don't underestimate its power in the hands
of a master ;-)

There is a huge amount of highly
functional libraries for almost
everything too.

Regards,

M.