231–240 of 288 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> C++ doesn't take longer to compile if you don't abuse templates. Surprisingly, this is not true. I've written a C++ file only to realize at the end that I did not use any C++ features. Renaming the file to .c halved the compilation time.
I don't believe you, I measured compile times in c compilers and my own. If you provide more information I'd be more likely to believe you
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it is similar for the same compiler (but one should check, I suspect C could still be faster), but then there are much more C compilers. For example, TCC is a lot faster than GCC.
tcc is 8x faster, twice as fast isn't doing it justice. As for the header thing, that'd could potentially be true if the compile time was something like 450ms -> 220ms, but why bother saying it when you're only saving a few hundred milliseconds
If those made-up numbers were true, they would be very significant and an argument in favor of keeping the code in C
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, you could argue that choosing C is just choosing a particular subset of C++. The main difference from choosing a different subset, e.g. “Google C++” (i.e. writing C++ according to the Google style guide), is that the compiler enforces that you stick to the subset.
C's string handling is so abominably terrible that sometimes all people really need is "C with std::string". Oh, and smart pointers too. And hash maps. Vectors too while we're at it. I think that's it.
So that wouldn't really fit C very well and I'd suggest that Rust's String, which is essentially just Vec plus a promise that this is a UTF-8 encoded string, is closer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have patience, the first 30 or so episodes of Handmade Hero are pretty good. https://guide.handmadehero.org/code/
Handmade Hero is a bad idea for anyone wanting to learn how to make a game in C or C++. Casey intentionally avoids using standard libraries and frameworks and his irrational hatred of high-level code and modern standards will lead developers astray and waste their time. Even if you're using C you don't need to implement your own renderer or do half the things he does. Get a library like SDL3 to handle the basics, may…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, but gcc with -O0 is still slower and there is no TCC for C++.
There are other C++ compilers to benchmark against, using the same common C subset for comparison, though.
I write mostly like I would in C, but use C++ features as needed. It ends up looking similar to Rust if you squint. All these "I write games in C" people complain about C++ features, and then end up reimplementing virtual interfaces manually with struct headers or massive switch statements, just to feel better about themselves. Writing games in C is not harder, you just have to implement modern language features by h…
It actually does though, unless you also drop C++ stdlib usage completely (have you looked at how many lines of code just alone pulls into each source file? - it's upward of 20kloc and growing with each new C++ version).
And at that point you get into discussions with various C++ camps about why you don't use the C++ stdlib and instead prefer to reinvent the wheel (and this friction with other C++ coders is the main problem of carving out your own subset - it works ok in complete isolation, but software development work hardly happens in splendid isolation and even then you'd might to want to use C++ libraries written by other people from time to time...)
And once you've been dragged into such C++-subset-discussion month after month, year after year, at that point it is much less exhausting to just write plain C. And the C community (if it can be called that) seems to be much less concerned about coding style dogma and generally a nicer bunch to interact with.
FWIW, I switched around 2017 and each time I have to interact with a C++ library for lack of alternatives it's usually not a pleasant experience (with the notable exception of Dear ImGui - but even there I started to prefer the C bindings so that I don't need to strictly separate the UI code from the rest of the code base, which sometimes makes sense, but often not, especially with an immediate mode UI framework).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> C++ doesn't take longer to compile if you don't abuse templates. Surprisingly, this is not true. I've written a C++ file only to realize at the end that I did not use any C++ features. Renaming the file to .c halved the compilation time.
I don't believe you, I measured compile times in c compilers and my own. If you provide more information I'd be more likely to believe you
Earlier quoted context omitted.
C++ reimplements a lot of the things we do in C with function pointers, while hiding what's actually happening behind topheavy syntax that implies a 1990s object oriented paradigm that's dead now.
Contrary to popular belief C++ isn't really object–oriented. I mean, you can write object–oriented code, but the language doesn't make assumptions about what goes into a class. It's really just a struct with associated functions.
If that were actually true C++ would be a lot easier to accept as a 'C successor'. Instead you have the implicit this-pointer, complicated rules for which constructor or operator overload is actually called, a hidden vtable pointer (not to mention multiple inheritance), then you have public/private/protected, override vs final, const methods (which wouldn't be needed as a separate syntax feature if the this arg wouldn't be implicit) etc etc etc... that a lot of OOP-baggage which a lot of C++ coders probably don't even notice anymore.
A plain C struct with function pointers does indeed make a lot more sense than all the OOP-ism that C++ hides from you ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
C++ nudges you to think in terms of single elements. Operator overloading, ctors/dtors, references, etc. you pay that cost all over the place. C programs tend to nudge you into thinking in terms of arrays of data. For game development you generally want to think this way. The cost of vtables and all the cache misses doesn’t have to be paid. A game has to stream bytes. Many things at once. Rarely single elements at a…
Only if devs lack the skills to understand what to actually use. There is this anti-C++ bias that keeps forgetting that using C++ doesn't mean use every feature. Just like many keep using C as if C89 was latest, and never adopt anything added in the last 30 years.
The struggle is that if you choose a subset of the language to use and you have dependencies… well you’re including whatever features they use into your subset.
I don’t think C++ is a bad language at all or anything. Just that it nudges developers into certain modes of thinking based on the features it chooses to focus on. Might explain why some developers still choose C.