Cooperative C++ Evolution – Toward a TypeScript for C++

Post by jandrewrogers » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

Aeolos wrote: post #100

pjmlp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And exactly what makes C++ codebases so hard to clean up from C idioms, as many developers to this day apparently never went beyond changing the file extension, regardless of how many security advocacy we keep telling them.

C++ adds so many additional security footguns over C, that I find this line of reasoning hard to accept. The problem with C++ is not that people are using C constructs with it, the problem is that the language design itself is deficient. Are you aware of any systematic review that shows evidence that C++ is safer than C? The rate of safety defects between major C and C++ projects appears similar at first glance, and…

Post by tialaramex » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

zorr wrote: post #33

mgaunard wrote: post #16

Neither TypeScript nor Dart are relevant technologies to people interested in C++. It's weird to refer to these arguably bad web technologies to market an unrelated initiative.

That seems like missing the point of the article. What I understand the author to mean with Dart plan vs Typescript plan is the way these languages approached evolution of the base language (JavaScript). Dart aimed to replace JavaScript completely and isn’t very compatible with it, leading to issues like not being able to leverage the existing library ecosystem. While the Typescript approach enhances the base languag…

Post by jonex » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

seabird wrote: post #152

Herb is infinitely more qualified to speak on the matter than I am, but I don't think I understand the point. We've had multiple decades to bring C++ under control for safe general purpose usage and it's still very loosey-goosey, to the point where people are rightly afraid to start work in it not because it's a bad or deficient language, but because keeping codebases sane is challenging and requires a lot of discipl…

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #147

chlorion wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ containers such as std::vector and std::array have bounds checking at least, though I have not saw them used very much. Bounds checking instantly eliminates buffer overflow related unsafety, but not having it as the default is not good.

The trouble with bounds checking via generics/macros is that the compiler doesn't know how to optimize out the checks. Most bounds checks can be optimized out of inner loops, where it really matters. But if the overflow test is just ordinary code, the compiler can't do that. You also want to hoist bounds checks and do them early. Often, one check at loop entry can eliminate the bounds checks for each iteration. But t…

Post by emmanueloga_ » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

    myclass : type = {
        data: int = 42;
        more: std::string = std::to_string(42);

        // method
        print: (this) = {
            std::println("data: (data)$, more: (more)$");
        }

        // non-const method
        inc: (inout this) = data++;
    }

    main: () = {
        x: myclass = ();
        x.print();
        x.inc();
        x.print();
    }