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C++: The Documentary

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Re: C++: The Documentary

#151

Post by TonyAlicea10 »

criddell wrote: post #149
TonyAlicea10 wrote: post #122

I always tell web developers I teach that the language of the internet isn’t JavaScript it’s C++. Web devs are just users playing in a C++ dev’s program. ;)

I tend to think of the web and the internet as distinct things. For the language of the web I'd probably nominate HTML. For the language of the internet it's a lot less clear to me.

Many browser rendering engines are built in C++, so C++ is parsing the HTML. My general point is that many web/internet techs that web devs interact with have C++ one abstraction level below for actual implementation.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#152

Post by Mond_ »

whstl wrote: post #105
tialaramex wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In February this year Herb tweaked a test case. That was his last commit to his "CPP2 syntax experiment". Don't expect it to "become a standard". https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront/commits/main/

That's a shame! It's a lovely language.

Is it really, though, or is it just in comparison to C++?

Tbh I never expected that experiment to go anywhere. I guess that leaves Carbon (and large scale efforts to rewrite C++ in Rust).

Re: C++: The Documentary

#153

Post by Mond_ »

criddell wrote: post #146
Chaosvex wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying it doesn't even do bounds checking (in release builds) is to miss one of the major points of C++ - not paying for what you don't need. It's not a mistake, it's a feature. You complain about it not being suitable for game development in one comment but then expect bounds checking in release builds? You're sitting in multiple lanes at the same time. NIH implementations are usually grossly inferior because as it…

Sometimes there are ways of getting runtime bounds checking. For example, both of these return the 3rd element of a std::vector: auto val1 = vec[3]; // no bounds checking auto val2 = vec.at(3); // bounds checking

Yes, with the trade-off of essentially requiring exceptions, which are also banned in some codebases.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#154

Post by Mond_ »

bregma wrote: post #143
tialaramex wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Safe) Rust is a lot better about the "Pit of Success" design than C++ There are fundamental technical choices to deliver that, but also ergonomic things like notice Rust's []::sort is a stable sort, whereas C++ std::sort is an unstable sort. If you don't know about sort stability in Rust what you wrote works and in C++ you get a nasty surprise.

C++ has std::sort() and std::stable_sort(). You should write what you mean, and you should know and understand your tools. Blaming the tool for your ignorance marks you as significantly less than an artisan.

Sort specifically is kind of a weird example, but C++ is full of awful naming.

std::map (which is not a hash map, which is what most people would expect), std::move (which doesn't move), std::vector (which is not a vector), and std::vector (which is not even a std::vector).

Re: C++: The Documentary

#155

Post by maccard »

bluGill wrote: post #116
domenicd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What type of project actually uses C++ 23 modules in real life? What kind of toolchain enables that? When I worked on Chromium, they were indefinitely in the "maybe in 5-10 years the tooling will be ready" camp.

The tooling people have - as of about a year ago said they are ready. Now everyone who considers themselves early adopters is using then. Most are waiting for the early adopters to figure out what the best practices are so we don't make a mess

What early adopters are using them? Because my impression is the tooling still isn’t there

Re: C++: The Documentary

#156

Post by 72deluxe »

mirmor23 wrote: post #144

Ken Thompson's criticism of C++ as incoherent, complex and garbage heap of ideas still resonates with me; C++98 was the last version I used for work although I've dabbled in 11/17/20 out of curiosity. IMO, if c++/cfront didn't ride on the tails of c, I'm skeptical it would've seen widespread use, but then, that's its main identity which limited it in ways that C++ was not willing to change; It is highly irritating to…

But C++98 is so different to even C++11. Bjarne's book covering C++11 read completely differently to the 98 version, I found.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#157

Post by dysoco »

dbdr wrote: post #95
GodelNumbering wrote: post #89

Personal opinion: C++ is the most elegant language I have used (for about 15 years). If you are the 'systemizer' type and like to have an extremely precise mental model of the thing you write down to the last bit, nothing beats C++. I acknowledge the limitations and uncertainties that come from compilers etc, but still

> If you are the 'systemizer' type and like to have an extremely precise mental model of the thing you write down to the last bit, nothing beats C++. I would say the same thing of Rust.

I very much prefer to work in Rust but it does force you to design things in an counter-intuitive way in certain situations (linked lists for the canonical example). Specially for lower level software I find C or C++ to allow for much more flexibility and thus the most straightforward design possible.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#158

Post by [deleted] »

zabzonk wrote: post #83
flohofwoe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understood the article, the main critique is that the stdlib has no concept of deprecation and breaking backward compatibility. E.g. the C++ committee is quick to add badly designed features to the stdlib but then can't roll them back when people actually realize that those new features are useless for most real-world code.

Badly designed things get replaced. For example unique_ptr replaced auto_ptr. I'm not sure if the language standard actually supports the term "deprecation" though. Edit: Also not sure what can possibly be downvoted here.

[deleted]

Re: C++: The Documentary

#159

Post by patrick451 »

tialaramex wrote: post #150
bregma wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ has std::sort() and std::stable_sort(). You should write what you mean, and you should know and understand your tools. Blaming the tool for your ignorance marks you as significantly less than an artisan.

Sure, both languages offer both generic comparison sorts†. But the defaults matter and as always in C++ the defaults are wrong, here it's reflected in naming. That's not actionable information, except in the sense that the correct action is "don't use C++". Because sure, I know about sort stability, and I know about pointer provenance, and about memory ordering, but there might be any number of things I do not know a…

> Sure, both languages offer both generic comparison sorts†. But the defaults matter and as always in C++ the defaults are wrong, here it's reflected in naming.

Why, exactly, is the c++ std::sort "wrong"? There are tradeoffs both ways. You happen to prefer stable sorting to speed, but that is a preference not an objective fact.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#160

Post by whstl »

Mond_ wrote: post #152
whstl wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a shame! It's a lovely language.

Is it really, though, or is it just in comparison to C++? Tbh I never expected that experiment to go anywhere. I guess that leaves Carbon (and large scale efforts to rewrite C++ in Rust).

I personally really like the syntax and the defaults, and I like it more than the C++ alternatives.
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