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Goodbye C++, Hello C

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Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#41

Post by adrianN »

patrick451 wrote: post #32
jcelerier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The compiler cannot catch logic or design errors. If you made a mistake when designing the algorithm and implemented it as it is, you'd need to debug anyway But that's the thing, it can. - you can specify compile-time preconditions and use the type system to ensure value are in range (which catches a ton of errors) - you can use constexpr to enforce no UB (UB in constexpr evaluation is a compile error) For instance…

How does the type system catch this bug double negate(double x){ return x; } ?

Naturally you first implement your algorithm together with a correctness proof inside the turing-complete type system. After that writing the real implementation can be left as an exercise for the compiler :)

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#42

Post by yoz-y »

jcelerier wrote: post #40

I wonder what kind of hardware OP runs on, and which compiler is used. Here on my laptop (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz), on linux, compiling an eigen example takes 0.7 seconds clang++ -fuse-ld=lld eigen.cpp -I/usr/include/eigen3/ 0,66s user 0,07s system 100% cpu 0,728 total if I put the eigen header in a PCH this drops to 0.1 seconds clang++ -fuse-ld=lld eigen.cpp -I/usr/include/eigen3/ -include-pch 0,08s…

Haven’t used Eigen for quite a while, but I do remember it being rather slow to compile once it proliferates. Those templates are clever but also quite taxing.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#43

Post by yoz-y »

tayistay wrote: post #11

The article makes me wonder: how much headroom do compilers of newer slow-to-compile languages such as Rust or Swift have for improving compile times?

Swift can reduce the “max time to compile a complex expression” indefinitely to force programmers to write simpler-to-compile code. /s

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#44

Post by giomasce »

maleldil wrote: post #12

> Where C++ gives you many slightly different takes on the same concept (e.g. unique_ptr, shared_ptr and raw pointers), C gives you one way to go and that one has a conveniently compact notation (such as float ). You use unique_ptr and shared_ptr because float is unsafe. If you don't care about the safety that smart pointers provide, you can use float* in C++ too. > ticking with the example of matrix math, it is baff…

The problem is not even just safety. You can write safe C, if you are careful (and you need to be careful also for C++, smart pointers do not just magically make everything right). The point is that OP makes the point that C requires to write less code, and this doesn't even seem true: you have to remember, each time some non-trivial object goes out of scope, to call its destructor/deallocator, which results in a lot of code (which can at times hard to read, especially if you have not completely linear control flow). Looking at just the declaration is a small part of the issue.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#45

Post by everyone »

gravypod wrote: post #23
userbinator wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"safety" is really overrated. The paranoia-fueled security industry has turned programming into some sort of weird authoritarian dystopia.

"I know my software just works" is really hubris. The fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants game industry has cranked up programmers egos and made them ignore a wide range of tools and practices that have been proven time and time again to improve developer velocity and reduce defects.

I'm a game dev and imo web-devs are the 'seat-of-our-pants' guys. In games we tend to use compiled and statically typed languages. They're pretty strict in what they allow and many errors are picked up by the IDE and/or prevent your code from even compiling.

Whereas javascript.. Your code could be doing almost anything yet it will run just fine. Also, cus its not compiled the IDE for javascript is much much less helpful (eg. theres no "find all references") and much more permissive.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#46

Post by everyone »

I just freakin' hate .h files... Writing pretty much the same thing but twice and in two different places for every function. Why?!? I would love C++ if not for them.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#47

Post by vvanders »

everyone wrote: post #45
gravypod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I know my software just works" is really hubris. The fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants game industry has cranked up programmers egos and made them ignore a wide range of tools and practices that have been proven time and time again to improve developer velocity and reduce defects.

I'm a game dev and imo web-devs are the 'seat-of-our-pants' guys. In games we tend to use compiled and statically typed languages. They're pretty strict in what they allow and many errors are picked up by the IDE and/or prevent your code from even compiling. Whereas javascript.. Your code could be doing almost anything yet it will run just fine. Also, cus its not compiled the IDE for javascript is much much less help…

I think it depends on a lot on the studio and culture. I don't think I saw a single unit tests before I left gamedev(a few smoketests to make sure the game didn't crash but that was about it).

I also rebuilt our audio streaming system over the course of 48 hours to use the texture streaming subsystem when we exceeded the 64 file handle limit on an certain platform. We needed to hit a date for a TGS demo and I can guarantee you that we had things which were even more YOLO for a fairly decently sized team/game.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#48

Post by bsder »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #16
suby wrote: post #13

>So what is the bare minimum? To use the GPU, I need a graphics API. Vulkan is the one that is most widely supported so that is a natural choice Vulkan can't possibly be the most widely supported graphics API can it? I have to imagine that targeting older hardware is better with OpenGL because it's been around forever, but I don't actually know and a quick google search doesn't turn up much.

You're right. I did some graphics work in my last job. OpenGL2 is supported by just about every device made in the last 15 years, on every major operating system, including software OpenGL in VMs. Vulkan is not officially supported on OSX (although there is an unofficial port that is quite good, from what I understand) and only runs on modern hardware.

The MoltenVK guys originally got their start creating a commercial offering of OpenGL on top of Metal so that you could skip the Apple OpenGL system.

Yeah, that's how crap Apple support for OpenGL is.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#49

Post by jolux »

Santosh83 wrote: post #39
wyager wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? Do you really think managed pointers are an example of authoritarian dystopianism?

He is talking (I believe) about the general trend of nudging, cajoling more and more coders into using managed, very high level, safe languages and runtimes, and in general discouraging peeking under the hood, at the hardware level, as something raw, wild or unsafe. Yes you can still do it on a RPi, but perhaps in another decade or so, you might not be allowed to program in 'unsafe' languages on all other mainstream…

> the general trend of nudging, cajoling more and more coders into using managed, very high level, safe languages and runtimes

This is a good thing: these languages and runtimes are indeed much safer, and also much more productive than C. You can even still get the same amount of low-level control with Rust.

> in general discouraging peeking under the hood, at the hardware level, as something raw, wild or unsafe.

C is unsafe though. Decades of experience writing software has shown us that even expert C programmers write memory bugs with regularity.

> Yes you can still do it on a RPi

Or any other PC really.

> but perhaps in another decade or so, you might not be allowed to program in 'unsafe' languages on all other mainstream platforms, unless you register for a driver/system developer license or something, or not even that.

Lunacy. What is the evidence for this?

> The tinkerer/hacker ethos is disappearing slowly from PCs.

It was only ever there in the first place with a tiny minority of users, and that minority seems as committed to their craft as they've ever been.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#50

Post by beached_whale »

aksss wrote: post #38
wyager wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? Do you really think managed pointers are an example of authoritarian dystopianism?

Thread safety is like bicycle helmet laws, discuss..

One would, but without a barrier the head hit before slowing waiting for the group the ground to get out of the critical section :)
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