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Well, "grownups with important jobs write C" can be taken in two ways. Non-snarky, sure. There are MANY people who write C professionally.

Not as many as there are Python, Java, JS, or C++ programmers. Depending on the survey, C seems to be neck and neck with PHP.

I read the comment the other way, though. The way that says that those other more popular languages are not serious, and NOT for grownups with important jobs.

Edit: actually, Jetbrains 2025 survey has C neck and neck with Rust: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-data-playground/ . Both "below the fold" and less than 10% of Java.

by anonymous9082133 hours ago|

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Python, Java, and JS are all implemented in C/++. C++ is an extension of C. Taken strictly, sure, not everyone is literally writing C. But C powers everything. It is still the systems language of the world, that is the foundation of all of our systems, including both embedded and phone/PC OSes. Then there's a bit of COBOL and Fortran for mainframes, Ada for military hardware, and a whole notta Rust anywhere.

Think about what Rust software people actually use. Codex CLI, uv, ripgrep, and what else? That's three pieces of software, all development tools for development nerds. Normal people aren't engaging with any of this stuff. Your metaphorical grandma has never used software written with Rust in her life.

by thomashabets23 hours ago|

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Cobol powers the world's money and international travel. Not sure how that matters.

> Think about what Rust software people actually use

More and more Chrome, Google, Android, Cloudflare, Prime Video, and phone basebands, parts of Linux kernel, and many other things.

Normal users literally use those all day every day.

Are they 100% Rust? Of course not (well, I don't actually know if some phone basebands are, by now. Naturally very closed source). But they're not 100% another-language either.

If C disappeared from the world, the world would stop, yes. Same with Cobol. Same with Java. Same with C++. Same with assembly.

If I were to guess (completely without basis for my guess) about the number of lines of code that normal users exercise in a normal day (counting each line just once), my bet would be on Java or JS.

Would the Java be able to run without the C code? No. But normal users would not be able to do anything if only C was left. And all banks would be gone.

And in any case C would not be able to do anything without transistors.

by dwattttt3 hours ago|

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Rust is in use in more places than you may expect. Does the hypothetical grandma use Windows' kernel? Android? Firefox? Chrome?

by anonymous9082133 hours ago|

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1% of code in some obscure module that's barely used being written in Rust does not give one claim to those things being written in Rust. Even Firefox is only 10% Rust despite the language being designed by Mozilla, and they abandoned their project to write a new browser engine in Rust.

by aero_code3 hours ago|

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It's not "some obscure module" that is written in Rust. Just some examples I know of:

- Chrome currently uses https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations to implement its font handling, and text is the main thing on most web pages.

- Windows' DirectWriteCore for font handling is also now written in Rust.

- Firefox's whole CSS engine and GPU 2D rendering engine are written in Rust.

by thomashabets23 hours ago|

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What is your point?

I pointed to a jetbrains study, and then there's a stackoverflow survey[1] showing C neck and neck with PHP at 11th place among professional developers.

We all know there's lots of important C code out there. I don't see anyone going "RIIR!!!" in this thread.

But obviously yes, the 11th place language will have MANY programmers working on it. Not as many as JS by far. But many. In that survey Go is just after PHP. There are also many many Go programmers.

We are not yet at risk of running out of C programmers, like the Cobol situation. Nor do I want us to.[2]

But what point are you trying to make by so strongly defending C and the comment "grownups with important jobs write C"?

[1] https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#most-popular... [2] relevant comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50187384

by anonymous9082133 hours ago|

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The point I am trying to make is that C is a production language and Rust is not a production language, so the original comment is pretty much correct if you take adults with jobs to mean writing software used in production. People use JS, your JS engine is written in C++, running in a browser written in C++, running on an OS written in C/++. Whatever higher-level language you use, it's powered by C/++. Your game engines are written in C/++. Your fucking car is written in C. It's not even an argument about what is better or what people should use or anything like that. It's just acknowledging reality. You're talking about how "writing new C in 2026 is misconduct" like it's a relic of a bygone era when in actuality the world around you is a world written entirely in C with, rounded to a whole percent, literally 0% of the software anyone uses being written in Rust.

by dwattttt1 hours ago|

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> Rust is not a production language

Your argument was that the only Rust projects there are are little developer tools, so Rust isn't a production language. When pointed out there are large projects that every day users rely on that use Rust, and not just in corners of the codebase, code that's exercised by approximately all users, you insist it's still not production?

by contact98791 hours ago|

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> Rust is not a production language because so much legacy code

You must not exist, because, rounded to a whole percent, literally 0% of the lives of people in the world are directly affected by you personally

by anthk44 minutes ago|

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In less than a year tons of Chromium features will be Rust based.

Even big bases as FFMPEG will be ported to Rust, as the porters' repos already use Rust's cc to compile ASM code.

And of course Qemu will be almost a mandatory candidate for obvious reasons.

For instance, quick and dirty SGI Irix emulator:

https://github.com/techomancer/iris

by scottyah2 hours ago|

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I doubt it, Rust developers compete only with crossfit and vegans in the race to be noticed.

by dwattttt1 hours ago|

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You.. doubt that people use Firefox, Chrome, Windows, or Android? That it must be "attention" that's the reason those projects have Rust in them now?

by anthk59 minutes ago|

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There's RustPython and far more compatible than IronPython back in the day. C++ is NOT an extension of C, they diverged a lot.

>Codex CLI, uv, ripgrep, and what else?

RustDesk, Servo/Firefox, tons of gtk4-rs on Gnome and extra tools, Librsvg, CosmicDE (Fedora Atomic with Cosmic can be slightly faster than vanilla Gnome Silverblue), Ruffle, Gopher64, ArtCraft (both the vibecodec cr*p and the AI powered magical multimedia IDE doing crazy stuff which is fine).

Oh, and Harper to sharp your English skills:

https://github.com/automattic/harper

IronCalc looks better than LO Calc performance wise:

https://github.com/ironcalc/ironCalc

Gnome might be a Rust domain tomorrow and nobody would bat an eye. Fedora/RH/IBM can rewrite the Anaconda installer in Rust in no time.