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In Defense of C++

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Re: In Defense of C++

#51

Post by loeg »

nzeid wrote: post #11

> Just using Rust will not magically make your application safe; it will just make it a lot harder to have memory leaks or safety issues. You know, not sure I even agree with the memory leaks part. If you define a memory leak very narrowly as forgetting to free a pointer, this is correct. But in my experience working with many languages including C/C++, forgotten pointers are almost never the problem. You're gonna be…

They're both problems, and forgotten pointers are more common in C, or C++ before 2011 (unique_ptr vs manual new/delete).

Re: In Defense of C++

#52

Post by BeetleB »

> Here’s a rule of thumb I like to follow for C++: make it look as much like C as you possibly can, and avoid using too many advanced features of the language unless you really need to.

Also, avoid using C++ classes while you're at it.

I recently had to go back to writing C++ professionally after a many-year hiatus. We code in C++23, and I got a book to refresh me on the basics as well as all the new features.

And man, doing OO in C++ just plain sucks. Needing to know things like copy and swap, and the Rule of Three/Five/Zero. Unless you're doing trivial things with classes, you'll need to know these things. If you don't need to know those things, you might as well stick to structs.

Now I'll grant C++23 is much nicer than C++03 (just import std!) I was so happy to hear about optional, only to find out how fairly useless it is compared to pretty much every language that has implemented a "Maybe" type. Why add the feature if the compiler is not going to protect you from dereferencing without checking?

Re: In Defense of C++

#53

Post by Symmetry »

lordleft wrote: post #3

Great article. Modern C++ has come a really long way. I think lots of people have no idea about the newer features of the standard library and how much they minimize footguns.

I eagerly await the day when they do away with the distinction between ".cpp" and ".hpp" files and the textual substitution nature of "#include" and replace them all with a proper module system.

Re: In Defense of C++

#54

Post by kronicum2025 »

The safety part in this article is incorrect. There's a google doc somewhere where Google did an internal experiment and determined that safety c annot be achieved in C++ without an owning reference (essentially what Rust has).

Re: In Defense of C++

#55

Post by butterisgood »

loeg wrote: post #45

> in C++, you can write perfectly fine code without ever needing to worry about the more complex features of the language. You can write simple, readable, and maintainable code in C++ without ever needing to use templates, operator overloading, or any of the other more advanced features of the language. This... doesn't really hold water. You have to learn about what the insane move semantics are (and the syntax for m…

Overloaded operators were a terrible mistake in every programming language I've encountered them in. (Yes, sorry Haskell, you too!)

I don't think move semantics are really that bad personally, and some languages move by default (isn't that Rust's whole thing?).

What I don't like is the implicit ambiguous nature of "What does this line of code mean out of context" in C++. Good luck!

I have hope for C++front/Cpp2. https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

(oh and I think you can write a whole book on the different ways to initialize variables in C++).

The result is you might be able to use C++ to write something new, and stick to a style that's readable... to you! But it might not make everyone else who "knows C++" instantly able to work on your code.

Re: In Defense of C++

#56

Post by ot »

loeg wrote: post #45

> in C++, you can write perfectly fine code without ever needing to worry about the more complex features of the language. You can write simple, readable, and maintainable code in C++ without ever needing to use templates, operator overloading, or any of the other more advanced features of the language. This... doesn't really hold water. You have to learn about what the insane move semantics are (and the syntax for m…

Reminds me of the old quote

> everyone only uses 20% of C++, the problem is that everyone uses a different 20%

Re: In Defense of C++

#57

Post by duped »

jandrese wrote: post #12
fouronnes3 wrote: post #8

This is a good article but it only scratches the surface, as is always the case when it comes to C++. When I made a meme about C++ [1] I was purposeful in choosing the iceberg format. To me it's not quite satisfying to say that C++ is merely complex or vast. A more fitting word would be "arcane", "monumental" or "titanic" (get it?). There's a specific feeling you get when you're trying to understand what the hell is…

In Linuxland you at least have pkg-config to help with package management. It's not perfect but neither is any other package management solution. If I'm writing a small utility or something the Makefile typically looks something like this: CC=clang PACKAGES=libcurl libturbojpeg CFLAGS=-Wall -pedantic --std=gnu17 -g $(shell pkg-config --cflags $(PACKAGES)) LDLIBS=$(shell pkg-config --libs $(PACKAGES)) ALL: imagerunner…

Consider that to do this you must:

- Use a build system like make, you can't just `c++ build`

- Understand that C++ compilers by default have no idea where most things are, you have to tell them exactly where to search

- Use an external tool that's not your build system or compiler to actually inform the compiler what those search paths are

- Oh also understand the compiler doesn't actually output what you want, you also need a linker

- That linker also doesn't know where to find things, so you need the external tool to use it

- Oh and you still have to use a package manager to install those dependencies to work with pkg-config, and it will install them globally. If you want to use it in different projects you better hope you're ok with them all sharing the same version.

Now you can see why things like IDEs became default tools for teaching students how to write C and C++, because there's no "open a text editor and then `c++ build file.cpp` to get output" for anything except hello world examples.

Re: In Defense of C++

#58

Post by butterisgood »

BeetleB wrote: post #52

> Here’s a rule of thumb I like to follow for C++: make it look as much like C as you possibly can, and avoid using too many advanced features of the language unless you really need to. Also, avoid using C++ classes while you're at it. I recently had to go back to writing C++ professionally after a many-year hiatus. We code in C++23, and I got a book to refresh me on the basics as well as all the new features. And ma…

I really don't like Object Oriented programming anywhere. Maybe Smalltalk had it right, but I've not messed with Pharo or anything else enough to get a feel for it.

CLOS seems pretty good, but then again I'm a bit inexperienced. Bring back Dylan!

Re: In Defense of C++

#59

Post by Jtsummers »

MontagFTB wrote: post #37

When NIST released its summary judgement against C++ and other languages it deemed memory unsafe, the problem became less technical and more about politics and perception. If you're looking to work within two arms' length of the US Government, you have to consider the "written in C++" label seriously, regardless of how correct the code may be.

The government is still happily commissioning new software projects that use C++. That may change in a few years, and some organizations may already be treating C++ more critically, but so far it's been unimpactful.
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