I agree. And those decades of development come with huge advantages. Libraries. Patterns. Textbooks! Billions of lines of code you can cross reference and learn from!
It's fun to bleed a little when you are tinkering. It's not fun to have to reinvent the wheel because you choose a language that doesn't have an existing ecosystem. That becomes and chicken-and-egg problem. The tinkerers fulfill this role (building out the ecosystem) and also tend to advocate for their tinkering language of choice. But there needs to be a real critical mass.
It takes decades to shift an entrenched ecosystem. Check in ten years if the following exist in languages other than C/C++: an enterprise grade database, a python(/etc.) interpreter that isn't marked experimental, an OS kernel that is used somewhere real, an embedded manufacturer that ships the language as its first class citizen, a AAA game using it under the engine...
Like, in the last 15 years, I'm only aware of a single AAA game that used a memory safe language -- Neverwinter Nights 2 used C# for part of the Electron Engine...
Rust is the most likely candidate here, although you see things like Erlang being used to make some databases (CouchDB). People see Rust being used on some real infrastructure projects that gain actual traction (polars comes to mind). Polars is an interesting use case though -- it's simply better than the other projects in its particular space and so people are switching to it not because it is written in rust at all... And honestly, that's probably the only way this happens.
It's like the Brits trying to convince everyone else to switch to their electrical socket. Sure, the design is better for higher voltage and current, has all these extra safety features, etc. But you cannot dramatically shift an entrenched ecosystem for free.
C is going to be around and useful long after COBOL is collecting dust. Too many core things are built with C. The Linux kernel, the CPython interpreter, etc. Making C go away will require major rewrites of projects that have millions upon millions of hours of development.
Even Fortran has a huge installed base (compared to COBOL) and is still actively used for development. Sometimes the right tool for a job is an old tool, because it is so well refined for a specific task.
You don't have to quit cold-turkey either. I still use reddit for a few communities that don't have traction anywhere else (niche game mods or similar). But I try to mostly create content here and not on Reddit. Things take time :)
I think you effectively nailed it. It's a small act that represents a person's larger outlook on civilization. Are you participating in it or are you rejecting it.
It's similar to a smoker that flicks their cigarettes in random places. Or spitting out gum on the sidewalk. Or many other small things that aren't that important on a small scale, but if everyone does the same thing, then is sucks. But if (almost) everyone does the small thing to benefit the whole, the whole is better off for it.
A good contrast is something like Outer Worlds, where there is usually multiple possible outcomes. I think it comes from their Fallout lessons learned and GURPS background. Love the game design. (Dislike the combat, but that is a separate thing.)
Actually kind of an amazing read. I suspect it shall live another life on 3-axis router tables and such for a while. The mechanic is single stroke lettering remain the same
I concur. I saw a truck with a flag on it the other day, and my immediate thought wasn't "antivaxxers nutcase" this time. Well, until I saw the bumper stickers. But the point stands -- there's been a really around the flag from the centre and it feels good to wash away the associated feelings.
Okay, napkin math... his nose is about 20cm long, and assuming it rotated about a perfect circle. The car moved say 10m. At the speed the car is moving, it covers that distance in ~120ns. So he has to move the end of his nose around a quarter circle of radius 20cm in 120ns. Let's say 30cm total movement, for easy math. 0.25cm/ns or 0.00025m/ns. The speed of light is 0.300m/ns, so we're talking about ~0.001c at the tip of his nose. Which is incidentally very close to the speed of sound in air.
So, probably not quite a sonic boom off the end of his nose. Assuming my math is correct. Very strong neck muscles. Also, he's been vapourized.
I'll believe it when I see code written for it solving a real problem