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C++11 FAQ

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Re: C++11 FAQ

#21

Post by izacus »

maxlybbert wrote: post #12
speedkills wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they don't bother. PSU is still teaching C++98.

That was the thing: starting with C++98, I was able to pick up C++11. But starting from scratch? I'm not sure.

We have a rather lagerish codebase of C++11/14 and we manage to get people coming from other languages (Java / ObjC) to start working with it just fine. Modern C++ is pretty decent and readable (excluding some quirks of STL naming).

Of course good code reviews and testing is a must to help people to get up to speed and stop shooting themselves in the foot :)

Re: C++11 FAQ

#22

Post by spoondan »

huhtenberg wrote: post #3

I've been programming for money for over 20 years and I grew up professionally writing C and then half-migrating to C++, because the latter very naturally captured lots of C patterns and allowed for more succinct expression of the same. It was lean, expressive and elegant . Just needed a bit of Lisp-y closures and it would've been perfect. And then things got completely out of hand. Elegance was nuked from the high o…

This is perhaps one of the more unexpected opinions on C++ I've encountered. When I picked up C++ with Turbo C++ 3.0 in the early '90s, it was already widely regarded as an over-complex behemoth. Donald Knuth said of it in 1993, "Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said 'OK, we'll do them both'. So the language is too baroque for my taste." The last twenty years, there's no C++ that I would call lean, expressive, and elegant. You give the example of template meta-programming as something added more recently, but Erwin Unruh was printing the primes in compiler error messages not long after Knuth was knocking C++ as baroque. It makes me wonder if perhaps the issue isn't simply that over time you've become more aware of how complex the language has always been?

The language has continued to grow, but it's growing in a rather different direction (or rather in a clear direction): towards a modern, preferred subset that _is_ lean, expressive, and elegant. While C++ is still far from my favorite language, I find C++ today to be far simpler, more expressive, and more elegant than at any other point in the past.

Re: C++11 FAQ

#23

Post by cmrdporcupine »

spoondan wrote: post #22
huhtenberg wrote: post #3

I've been programming for money for over 20 years and I grew up professionally writing C and then half-migrating to C++, because the latter very naturally captured lots of C patterns and allowed for more succinct expression of the same. It was lean, expressive and elegant . Just needed a bit of Lisp-y closures and it would've been perfect. And then things got completely out of hand. Elegance was nuked from the high o…

This is perhaps one of the more unexpected opinions on C++ I've encountered. When I picked up C++ with Turbo C++ 3.0 in the early '90s, it was already widely regarded as an over-complex behemoth. Donald Knuth said of it in 1993, "Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said 'OK, we'll do them both'. So the language is too baroque for my taste." The la…

Arguably the std::move stuff and the semantics around it have added uncomfortable complexity to the language, even if it might have been necessary. Other than that I think other advances in C++11 and beyond have made for a quite nicer language to work in.

I love C++11 and use it every day, but I think putting references in the language was an 'original sin'. They should have stuck with C's model: it's either a value or a pointer to a value. References just added a pile of complexity and pontificating about whether something was being copied, moved, or passed by reference.

Re: C++11 FAQ

#24

Post by saalweachter »

huhtenberg wrote: post #18
athenot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you paint as a fault might be an asset: C++ is multi-paradigm. There is more than one way to look at something and there is a joyous chaos of varied abstractions from which to choose from. Yes it takes a certain openness of mind and a long learning curve. But then, you get to operate at a level that other platforms can only dream. In full disclosure, I do NOT consider myself a good C++ programmer. But I've alway…

> C++ is multi-paradigm Yep, here it is - http://i.imgur.com/1oGHYqi.jpg :)

Just out of curiosity, which era of C++ did you like? C++98, or pre-Standard C++?

At least since C++98, C++ has always had the "multi-paradigm problem". If you try to use every language feature and paradigm C++ has to offer, you are going to suffer. Writing and maintaining a large C++ codebase has always required restricting yourself to a subset of the language.

Re: C++11 FAQ

#25

Post by sandeatr »

huhtenberg wrote: post #3

I've been programming for money for over 20 years and I grew up professionally writing C and then half-migrating to C++, because the latter very naturally captured lots of C patterns and allowed for more succinct expression of the same. It was lean, expressive and elegant . Just needed a bit of Lisp-y closures and it would've been perfect. And then things got completely out of hand. Elegance was nuked from the high o…

The things you are complaining about are what make the language worth using-

Re: C++11 FAQ

#26

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #23
spoondan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps one of the more unexpected opinions on C++ I've encountered. When I picked up C++ with Turbo C++ 3.0 in the early '90s, it was already widely regarded as an over-complex behemoth. Donald Knuth said of it in 1993, "Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said 'OK, we'll do them both'. So the language is too baroque for my taste." The la…

Arguably the std::move stuff and the semantics around it have added uncomfortable complexity to the language, even if it might have been necessary. Other than that I think other advances in C++11 and beyond have made for a quite nicer language to work in. I love C++11 and use it every day, but I think putting references in the language was an 'original sin'. They should have stuck with C's model: it's either a value…

Surely references have intrinsic value to the programmer? They're a pointer that can't be moved or rebased. Other languages have only references, and in C++ you can use that convention and not have any extra confusion.

Re: C++11 FAQ

#27

Post by cmrdporcupine »

maxlybbert wrote: post #12
speedkills wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they don't bother. PSU is still teaching C++98.

That was the thing: starting with C++98, I was able to pick up C++11. But starting from scratch? I'm not sure.

Wow I feel the opposite. Because C++98 and earlier were so deficient in a lot of ways, people who got clever with it often ended up down a rabbit hole of template metaprogramming, boost:: bloat, custom classes for callback stuff, custom classes for reference counting or other smart pointers, etc. etc. Unlearning all that took me some time.

In my 5 years at Google, I've watched many developers start from scratch on our subset of modern C++. There doesn't seem to be a huge challenge with it.

Re: C++11 FAQ

#28

Post by hacker_9 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #3

I've been programming for money for over 20 years and I grew up professionally writing C and then half-migrating to C++, because the latter very naturally captured lots of C patterns and allowed for more succinct expression of the same. It was lean, expressive and elegant . Just needed a bit of Lisp-y closures and it would've been perfect. And then things got completely out of hand. Elegance was nuked from the high o…

I agree. The other day I had to dive into the libigl [1] matrix structure (for those that don't know, a matrix is basically a 4x4 grid of numbers). What I found was over 10 levels of inheritance, along with rampant template use and macros _everywhere_. It actually took so long to parse I ended up just changing my algorithm completely to avoid having to use it. I have utmost respect for anyone that can work with C++ day to day, but I'll be staying away thanks.

[1] https://github.com/libigl/libigl/

Re: C++11 FAQ

#29

Post by cmrdporcupine »

72deluxe wrote: post #2

Good stuff, I can also heartily recommend Scott Meyer's Effective Modern C++ book which covers idiosyncrasies and some unexpected behaviour (at least to me). Also Stroustrup's 4th edition of The C++ Programming Language is invaluable, if not just for the more-readable sans-serif font compared to the 3rd edition! And of course the coverage of all C++11 changes in it... I can also recommend the Overload journal for int…

I need to figure out what to do with my expensive old hard cover addition of the (C++98) C++ Programming Language. It just sits there looking sad. Not much value in it anymore.

Re: C++11 FAQ

#30

Post by maxlybbert »

baq wrote: post #14
maxlybbert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered how anybody manages to teach C++ today. I love working with the language, and I understand the reason behind many of the features, but I can't help but feel like it would be impossible to teach to beginners.

that's because it is impossible. it takes years to master the language and that was before i lost touch with it around 2010 back when C++11 was TR1 or whatnot. i understand that what is usually considered good form is trying to completely forget about C features like pointers and arrays and use their STL counterparts like unique/shared_ptr, std::vector, std::array and iterators. this gets you a nice modern subset of…

I didn't use C-style string functions for the longest time. If I had a char*, perhaps because I got it from some C library we were using, I would turn it into a std::string and use it's functions and operators. One day, I realized how silly that was: I'm sure I was causing gratuitous memory allocations (not all strings qualify for the short string optimization).

Perhaps part of my hangup is the expectation that you would teach the difference between, say, enum and enum class. There are good reasons to use enum, and I believe there always will be. There are good reasons to use pointers (in fact, one of the main reasons I use pointers is to point to the payload of a std::unique_ptr, and I use std::unique_ptr when I have an obvious owner, even if I might need other functions to access the payload while the owner is still around).

So I don't think that it's possible to ignore "the old ways" completely.

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