# Should you have a computer JUST for programming



## PC person (Feb 2, 2006)

That you do nothing else on. I was going to watch some videos on C programming and it suggests you use a computer just for doing programming and that's all, that it's actually easy to take up all your computer's resources.

Is it really risky not to do this?


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## PhiK (Jul 25, 2013)

Well, I am not very experienced with C, but I think this is total nonsense.
Unless you are programming your own OS or at least kernel-mode drivers, there should neither be a problem with other software running (except for antivirus maybe) nor any risk to harm your computer.


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## Old Rich (May 31, 2007)

Don't know how relevant this is, but I built a pc specifically to edit and render DVD movies of the grandmonsters . . let me do other things while it chugged away


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## PC person (Feb 2, 2006)

Here's a quote from the lesson



> As with all software development, you'll want to do the exercise files for this course on a system dedicated for this purpose.
> 
> C and C++ are systems languages, and it is possible even easy to mistakenly write a program that takes up all the resources on your system or crashes it entirely. You'll need to know how to find and correct problems on your system and have the time and freedom to do so without losing critical resources.


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## Fjandr (Sep 26, 2012)

It is indeed easy to consume all system resources during compilation, though as PhiK says it's usually during compilation of extremely complex programs.

However, there are many types of programming error that can lead to tying up all of your system resources either during compilation or runtime.


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## PhiK (Jul 25, 2013)

We use the standards of OS 2, so a crashing problem is a kind of "normal". I think every Windows user had a program crash once. Did this destroy the PC? Windows can go on in most cases, it just laggs, and then everything is fine again. And if you write your own programs, you should know what they are doing, so it's an even lower risk for computer destruction. Additionally 1 program can't have infinite RAM, CPU usage, etc. That's not only for Java, but for any programming language I think, because you can't address infinite RAM, you can't change which programs the processor evaluates next, etc... If you are writing really complex stuff, which could have a chance of deleting all your files for example, then maybe a 2nd PC is good. And of course if you do it for business, and you want to be 100% safe, having a programming only PC is the way to go.


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## Larusso (Oct 14, 2009)

Just put my opionion here.

Regarding your first post, I guess you are going to start with C programming. 
So you have ( dont take it personal ) no idea what you can do with C and what you cant ( well, there isnot much you cant do with the C language, it is just little bit more work than with higher programming languages ).

That being said, as long as you develop in userlevel you should not be bothered about using a single PC for developing. If the programm crashes, only the programm you develop will crash.

Depending on how deep you want to go, as soon as it starts with hardware interaction, you should think about using an older test PC as this can cause critical errors. 

Everything else has been posted by my colleague Phik :smile:


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## PC person (Feb 2, 2006)

> Just put my opionion here.
> 
> Regarding your first post, I guess you are going to start with C programming.
> So you have ( dont take it personal ) no idea what you can do with C and what you cant ( well, there isnot much you cant do with the C language, it is just little bit more work than with higher programming languages ).
> ...


I do have an older PC, a windows xp one. I think it may be safe to use. I know support has ended on it for updates, so security will be an issue, but as long as ALL I do is do the online lesson and program, and do no web surfing at all, it seems like I'll be ok.


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