To Save C, We Must Save ABI

The famous C dilemma: we want to be as close to the machine as possible, but don't want to change anything when the machine changes

Previous submissions with comments:

- 2023-06-10, 64 points, 16 comments: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36249253)

- 2022-03-13, 175 points, 129 comments: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30660528)

COM-like C ABI saves C++

But the industry ultimately runs on compatibility, so I get why they do it. But if compatibility breaks, wouldn't hardware vendors die out? If you look at PLC and other hardware manufacturers, they're not even using modern coding. They're still running on old code. They say it's 'safe and certified code,' but in reality, it's just legacy code.

Because in hardware, programmers, aside from researchers, are often paid much less and work in worse conditions compared to their software counterparts. At a software company, code is the product itself. But in manufacturing, software is treated as a cost attached to machines worth billions of dollars. While equipment and sensors keep getting updated and more expensive, the people connecting everything are seen as a cost cutting target. So hardware programmers generally have good job security, but their salaries aren't high. In that situation, asking them to learn something new instead of sticking with the old ways usually gets resistance, because they're not being properly compensated for that learning

Yeah, well, that didn't happen

Thousands of words that boil down to "intmax_t isn't ABI-stable". Who knew? (Everybody.)