Authors:
Katsuhiko Gondow
and
Yoshitaka Arahori
Affiliation:
Department of Computing Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo and Japan
Keyword(s):
C Language, Programming Courses, Embedded/System Programming, Operating Systems, Language Pitfalls.
Abstract:
The C language is still one of the important programming languages both in development and in education, since C has several positive characteristics like good abstraction for low-level programming, and fast execution speed with less footprint, although C has several drawbacks and pitfalls like buffer overruns. So there are several research studies to support C programming educations to compensate the C’s drawbacks and pitfalls, but there is a skeptical view about these research direction: “C is a bad language, so it is better to stop teaching C, instead of supporting C education”. In this position paper, we argue against this skeptical view, mainly because C is very important in upper-level courses like embedded/system programming and operating systems, so worth teaching.