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Goodbye C++, Hello C

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Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#121

Post by socialdemocrat »

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…

People get blinded by features. At the end of the day, what influence your ability to write safe code is the human brain. You have to be able to reason about and understand the code effectively to discover and fix problems.

Ironically C++ by adding a ton of features to make the language “safer” basically achieves the opposite. Complexity obscures how your code works and thus aids in hiding critical bugs.

I have had so many cases with obscure bugs the 15 years I used C++ that simply would be impossible to reproduce in C.

Does it mean I advocate C for safer coding? Not at all, but I think the advantage of C++ is grossly overstated.

Languages such as Go are better examples for writing safe code. Why? Because they quite strong type safety and good memory semantics while not adding too high complexity to the language. Everything is far more explicit than in C++ which has too much “magic” and implicit behavior.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#122

Post by socialdemocrat »

I can relate a lot to this as an old school C++ developer (not anymore). I also remember switching a project over to pure C some years ago and found it a lot more pleasant to work with. But I combined it with Lua so I could use Lua for high level constructs C is not so good at.

Anyway I suspect that in a few years Zig will be the choice in scenarios like this. It gives you fast compilation times and low level access like C while being a lot safer, but without adding C++ level complexity.

That is an important sweet spot to hit.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#124

Post by mauricedenassau »

While I can understand the feeling of "bloat" in C++, I can't help but be put off each time I have to implement something even remotely serious in C. I have to reinvent the wheel everytime while in C++ I can have access to high quality implementation in the STL.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#125

Post by christophilus »

userbinator wrote: post #55
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.

"proven" sounds like cargo-culting dogma. The same was said of OOP in the 90s, and look what that caused. Hence my distrust of the snake-oil. Also, my real-world experience with wading through the abstraction insanity often seen in C++ (and justified because it's "safer") to find and fix bugs, and even more so with the sheer baroqueness of Enterprise Java (arguably an "even safer language"), shows that "reduce defect…

I think that if we focused on building small, simple programs that do one thing well and compose, C would be OK. It’s when we build out behemoths that you really have a hard time reasoning about your code. At that point, vulnerabilities are almost guaranteed. This is true in any language, but more so in unsafe ones.

Maybe the suckless guys are on to something.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#126

Post by [deleted] »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #121
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…

People get blinded by features. At the end of the day, what influence your ability to write safe code is the human brain. You have to be able to reason about and understand the code effectively to discover and fix problems. Ironically C++ by adding a ton of features to make the language “safer” basically achieves the opposite. Complexity obscures how your code works and thus aids in hiding critical bugs. I have had s…

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#127

Post by christophilus »

vvanders wrote: post #47
everyone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gua…

To be honest, the game industry is a good counterpoint to TDD zealotry. You can go quite far with adequate results without a single unit test.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#128

Post by christophilus »

1024core wrote: post #6

I've always been impressed by Go's compile times. The first few times I thought I'd made a mistake, and it was doing nothing (the prompt came back so quickly). Now I know better :-)

This is my favorite OCaml and Go feature, and one that I wish all other languages would adopt.

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#129

Post by bionade24 »

dasb wrote: post #108
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…

Can someone tell me what it means that "float is unsafe"? I'd never heard about that.

The statement was made about a float pointer. Still float precision is a problem beginners run into, too. So maybe it'll will help one reading it somewhen.

float a = 0.1f * 0.1f; assert((a - 0.01f) < 0.0001); <-- Works assert(a == 0.01f); <-- Will fail

Re: Goodbye C++, Hello C

#130

Post by fm77 »

WalterBright wrote: post #8
thechao wrote: post #3

I like to think of a compiler as a virtual machine whose instructions are the tokens in your code, and whose output is object code. Taken that way, you can for sure optimize the input program (your C++) to execute faster on the interpreter (the compiler). Understanding how the language (any language with such features) is implemented lets you stray away from the slow parts. For instance, in C, every function has a un…

> I've seen slow compiling code with hundreds of identically named functions. I sometimes think I've seen everything programmers do, and then something like this pops up. > You can make your C++ code compile fast by simply not using slow paths through the compiler. D is fast to compile because it sidesteps or redesigns features that make for slow compilation.

Walter, I am sorry, completely off-topic… but I have to ask - and you don’t have to answer ;-) …is that you?

https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1988-09/page/n148/...

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