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Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

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Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#41

Post by lmilcin »

praptak wrote: post #35
harry8 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can program C well, C++ isn't going to be too much of a problem for you. The reverse is not necessarily true. If I were hiring on a C++ project I'd definitely want to talk to someone who is genuinely good at C - they may not want to talk of course.

> If you can program C well, C++ isn't going to be too much of a problem for you. I only agree that understanding C helps somewhat , e.g. by avoiding the traps of not thinking hard about the underlying memory model. But it won't help you with template metaprogramming or how exceptions can break your supposedly memory-safe code: https://herbsutter.com/gotw/_102/

And that's why I am not claiming I know C++.

Don't get me wrong, I can read the code, debug it and correct it.

But in C++ being able to read the code and understanding consequences of every single line of it are completely different things.

There is just so much magic involved that no one ever can claim they fully know C++ and if they do I can safely and provably call them liars and find something they will not be able to explain.

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#42

Post by pjmlp »

lmilcin wrote: post #39
pjmlp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish, althought C++ was born on the same building as C (kind of) and has enjoyed first class support on UNIX, it has hardly taken its place at the kernel level or syscalls. So most UNIX/POSIX projects, even new ones, will default to C. Then there is the embedded space where almost 40 years later trying to use C++ instead of C is still an uphill battle, between embedded development communities, tool vendors, debuggi…

> Then there is the embedded space where almost 40 years later trying to use C++ instead of C is still an uphill battle, between embedded development communities, tool vendors And why do you think this is so? When I was starting with embedded development I missed C++ as I felt compelled to reinvent same things that were given in C++. But then I grew up to learn there is a hefty price to pay for it and in embedded dev…

It is a culture problem, something that only will change with mentality reboot.

"CppCon 2016: Dan Saks “extern c: Talking to C Programmers about C++”"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Sd8A6_fYU

"Writing better embedded Software - Dan Saks - Keynote Meeting Embedded 2018"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VtGCPIoBfs

"Embedded & C++ - Meeting 2017 Keynote"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNPfsUZb3vs

In a way, the same kind of subculture in C++ that jumps in cries of horror if you happen to use std::vector/array/string with bounds checking enabled.

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#43

Post by IgorPartola »

throwaway20014 wrote: post #25

Anyone who wants a very good modern C book that's only 272 pages, take a look at 'Effective C - An Introduction to Professional C Programming by Robert C. Seacord. [1]. It's from 2020. Robert Seacord is a Technical Director at NCC Group where he develops and delivers secure coding training in C, C++, and other languages. Seacord is an expert on the C Standards committee. > That's some solid credentials. He focuses on…

Hi Robert! :)

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#44

Post by lmilcin »

pjmlp wrote: post #42
lmilcin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there is the embedded space where almost 40 years later trying to use C++ instead of C is still an uphill battle, between embedded development communities, tool vendors And why do you think this is so? When I was starting with embedded development I missed C++ as I felt compelled to reinvent same things that were given in C++. But then I grew up to learn there is a hefty price to pay for it and in embedded dev…

It is a culture problem, something that only will change with mentality reboot. "CppCon 2016: Dan Saks “extern c: Talking to C Programmers about C++”" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Sd8A6_fYU "Writing better embedded Software - Dan Saks - Keynote Meeting Embedded 2018" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VtGCPIoBfs "Embedded & C++ - Meeting 2017 Keynote" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNPfsUZb3vs In a way, the same…

I think the basic issue is that C++ want to spend a lot of time focusing on C++ The Language, while C developers mostly want to focus on developing the logic of whatever they are doing.

When I worked on C++ projects half of the discussion was on just the use of language or various consequences of it.

On C projects that never happens. There is nothing to talk about so everybody focuses on making the project better.

Things I don't miss after I switched from C++ to C:

-- discussing compiler feature set,

-- discussing how exactly to format complex C++ constructs,

-- regular calls for help from less experienced devs to more experienced C++ "gurus" for their wisdom to just interpret what the code does or tell them how to write the thing they want to write,

-- trainings for less experienced developers so that they can even understand the syntax of the code,

-- hunting bugs due to lack of understanding of complex internal mechanisms,

-- having hard time working with a debugger on complex code,

-- not being able to tell wtf is the exact type of the thing that I am looking at or what exact code is going to get execute when I use an operator or call a function. The IDE not being able to locate it for me is an added "bonus".

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#45

Post by wruza »

lmilcin wrote: post #16
harry8 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can program C well, C++ isn't going to be too much of a problem for you. The reverse is not necessarily true. If I were hiring on a C++ project I'd definitely want to talk to someone who is genuinely good at C - they may not want to talk of course.

I have been programming professionally for over 20 years in languages ranging from assembly to Lisp and everything inbetween and applications from embedded to Linux kernel, to OS, to backend systems to algorithmic trading. That I don't touch C++ is my choice because after years of development I decided that most of all I value simple and readable code, working with people who like to write simple and readable code or…

No upvote can tell how much I relate to this. The only way to get a good maintainable C++ code is to hire very mediocre programmers whose “C++” really means “Qt with some shared ptrs”.

The reason (I believe) is that complex things are like hard drugs for smart people. Instead of solving business tasks, which honestly are often just boring, they long for an art in programming. In C++ this inevitably leads to solving non-existing problems in a most complex, efficient and unstable way that requires a hard set of prerequisites to work, and then these break. You can see it on forums. C, python, js folks discuss libraries, idioms and best practices, and C++ folks discuss a turing completeness of template metaprogramming and the most obscure ways to pass results up the callstack without copying 8 to 24 bytes. Almost no one I talked with there actually worked for someone who actually needed these microscopic gains all over the code. Or who understood what they do beyond “it’s complex and expensive, but in the end they deliver the results we need, so that’s justified”.

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#46

Post by jstimpfle »

varajelle wrote: post #32
flohofwoe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you feel the need to emulate C++ features in C then you're just writing C code with a C++ mindset. Getting back to the "C way" takes a couple of months to get C++ out of your system first ;) Of course for some types of problems, C++ is indeed the better language than C, but very often other languages are even better suited (e.g. I turn to Python for most problem where C doesn't work well, for instance munching tex…

I was referring to the things from the video, where RAII and generic types are emulated with complex macros. And where std::string(_view) is re-invented

You are probably referring to the defer() macro, which is well suited for some cases and not too unergonomic to use. I've used this for multiple years, and I still love it, together with X-macros they are some of the most important tricks I would advice any C programmer to try out.

Sometimes with defer() you might get a difficult to read error message when you're doing something wrong, but it's galactically easier to deal with than the standard STL error spew that so many C++ programmers have just come to accept, and it's hard to do something wrong in the first place (just put simple expressions as arguments).

A comparison of defer() with RAII is not that meaningful, as they are totally different things. RAII is this complicated system that leads to (requires) other more complicated stuff like {default,copy,move,assignment...}{constructor/destructors} as well as exceptions, with all sort of terrible interactions and implicit behaviour, that can easily get out of hand and make your code an unreadable mess and/or produce terribly inefficient (piece-meal allocations/function calls) and slow-compiling code (huge header includes).

In the simple situations where defer() is a win, if you use (just) RAII instead, you always have to declare a class out-of-line first (using weird braces and all) to get ad-hoc behaviour, while with defer() macro you can just make something up on the spot, which is often a better way.

I'm not saying there can't be experienced coders who use RAII well in some situations, but personally I opt to just not use it, since the price seems far to high for the benefits, outside of say primitive use in leetcode assignments.

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#47

Post by fnord123 »

mettamage wrote: post #36
Y_Y wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're just an unusually talented coder, but I pay dearly for every little extra bit of C++ my code touches. It's often worth it, but never a freebie.

I'm distinguishing between a hobby perspective and a professional perspective. IMO that really depends on the project size and goal of the project. I've written a C++ project of about 1000 lines (algobot trader with some optimized data structures in keeping the order book consistent). I've written it in VS Code, used a GUI debugger and I haven't really paid for anything. Meanwhile, I have this friend that programs so…

Are you sure you're not hitting heisenbugs every 2-3 months?

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#48

Post by lmilcin »

mettamage wrote: post #36
Y_Y wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're just an unusually talented coder, but I pay dearly for every little extra bit of C++ my code touches. It's often worth it, but never a freebie.

I'm distinguishing between a hobby perspective and a professional perspective. IMO that really depends on the project size and goal of the project. I've written a C++ project of about 1000 lines (algobot trader with some optimized data structures in keeping the order book consistent). I've written it in VS Code, used a GUI debugger and I haven't really paid for anything. Meanwhile, I have this friend that programs so…

The issue is for small project you don't really require C++ over C. Because supposedly the price you pay for abstractions has better returns the larger the application is (and that is generally true).

My largest C project was 60k lines of code.

The code was very, very dense. It had a lot of functionality that had to be packed to as little code as possible (due to memory limitation). It had things like transactional log-based database working in very small, static amount of memory, point in time recovery (so if the application failed it could restore itself to a number of possible checkpoints before the failure), parsers for various protocols (BER-TLV, for example), a lot of cryptography and custom cryptographic protocols, a GUI framework for a small monochromatic screen and keypad, drivers for a bunch of devices (thermal printer, external pinpad, etc.), SSL, a lot of business logic, state machines for talking to a network host, etc.

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#49

Post by rnestler »

pjmlp wrote: post #28
varajelle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C died and C++ is newer and better version of it That's kind of my opinion. C didn't die for legacy reasons, but starting new project in C seems a nonsense to me. C++ just has so many features that makes the development of programs and libraries easier, for almost no extra costs.

I wish, althought C++ was born on the same building as C (kind of) and has enjoyed first class support on UNIX, it has hardly taken its place at the kernel level or syscalls. So most UNIX/POSIX projects, even new ones, will default to C. Then there is the embedded space where almost 40 years later trying to use C++ instead of C is still an uphill battle, between embedded development communities, tool vendors, debuggi…

> Then there is the embedded space where almost 40 years later trying to use C++ instead of C is still an uphill battle, between embedded development communities, tool vendors, debugging tools, available libraries.

I worked in embedded development for over 10 years and at every place it was the norm to use C++ instead of C internally. But when creating libraries for customers to use, these where almost always in C or at least with C bindings.

I guess the reason is that one can use C libraries in C++, but not the other way around.

Re: Modern C and What We Can Learn from It [video]

#50

Post by throwaway20014 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #43
throwaway20014 wrote: post #25

Anyone who wants a very good modern C book that's only 272 pages, take a look at 'Effective C - An Introduction to Professional C Programming by Robert C. Seacord. [1]. It's from 2020. Robert Seacord is a Technical Director at NCC Group where he develops and delivers secure coding training in C, C++, and other languages. Seacord is an expert on the C Standards committee. > That's some solid credentials. He focuses on…

Hi Robert! :)

? . I'm not Robert. Just wanted to mention his book.
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