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C++: The Documentary

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Re: C++: The Documentary

#241

Post by WalterBright »

wasmperson wrote: post #238
WalterBright wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if c++/cfront didn't ride on the tails of c, I'm skeptical it would've seen widespread use What launched C++ into success was Zortech C++. At the time, 90% of programming was done on MS-DOS. Cfront was nearly unusable on DOS, because: 1. agonizingly slow to compile 2. no support for near/far pointers, which was essential for non-trivial apps Zortech C++ fixed those problems, and sold like wildfire. This provided cr…

Your perspective on this may be distorted due to your personal involvement. Do you believe MSVC++ or Turbo C++ would still have existed without Zortech C++ arriving first? Because if so then I don't think you can really take credit for C++ popularity on the PC.

> Do you believe MSVC++ or Turbo C++ would still have existed without Zortech C++ arriving first?

Nope. As I mentioned, Borland was working on their own OOP C language. ZTC++'s success caused them to abandon it and do Turbo C++. I know this because of my conversations with Eugene Wang. And Turbo C++'s success caused Microsoft to do MSVC++, which was quite late to the game.

Before C++, the newsgroup traffic on C++ and ObjC was about the same. The C++ traffic took off after ZTC++ was released.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#242

Post by fasterik »

orsenthil wrote: post #166

I haven't watched this yet. With all due respect, why John Romero instead of John Carmack for a C++ documentary ?

Romero was a prolific programmer himself back in the day. He's become more known as a designer because Carmack took over as the main engine programmer at id, but Romero was still writing tooling and editors, in addition to doing the level design.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#243

Post by fasterik »

raincole wrote: post #26
claiir wrote: post #5

> currently (as of Q3 2025) the fastest-growing of the top four languages in the world… +90% users in the past 3.5 years. Because of AI, right?

If this is a rhetorical question I genuinely don't know what's the implied answer. Why would AI specifically make C++ grow?

Just speculation, but I think we would expect a language to grow if AI is effective with it. C++ has a lot of training data. Most large software projects are written in C++: web browsers, compilers, 3D renderers, game engines, UI toolkits, etc.

AI is also probably more effective with statically typed languages since the compiler catches a wider range of errors.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#244

Post by Chaosvex »

pulpbag wrote: post #121
Chaosvex wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, I've never seen any nice code from Casey despite all of the mud slinging he's done over the years. Maybe it exists somewhere but I watched a lot of Handmade Hero when it was starting off and the code was a mess. It feels as though he just attracted an audience of junior developers who take everything he says as gospel, as is often the case with social media programmers. Lord knows I've argued with some of…

I'm confused. I looked at the Handmade Hero videos and I had no trouble following - it was simple straightforward procedural code. As I understand it, his code does "exist somewhere". Bink 2 from RAD Game Tools, which seems to ship with practically all games. He also developed the Walk System that shipped in "The Witness" (2016). You can see his blog posts and video lecture about that. I see that he and a Jay Stelly…

You've attacked a strawman.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#245

Post by WalterBright »

andrewl-hn wrote: post #200
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…

Something that not many people consider. It is almost certain that C++ "saved" C by existing. Without C++ there would be an enormous pressure to add more features to C itself. One reason why C committee could get away without adding much over the years was that they could nod towards C++ and say "that's their job, not ours". And if later didn't exist who knows what kind of language C would become. Classes? Templates?…

> It is almost certain that C++ "saved" C by existing.

Perhaps. But in the 80's, C was the most practical language to use on the PC, by far. And porting C code to other platforms was easy.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#246

Post by igouy »

doug_durham wrote: post #199
0xpgm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly respect the Ken Thompson and the rest of the old UNIX hands, but wouldn't they admit that the real world is messy and the best solutions in isolation don't always win? Their creation C and UNIX won over the more advanced LISP and Smalltalk systems because they were simpler to implement. Even their own more advanced Plan 9 based OSs could not displace the more widespread unix-like systems. It seems distributi…

You think that LISP and Smalltalk aren't widely used is because they weren't easy to implement in the late 1980's? There have been many languages that have risen to prominence in the 40 years since, yet LISP and Smalltalk remain niche languages.

Which new languages have risen to prominence outside of a niche?

Re: C++: The Documentary

#247

Post by lepicz »

mwigdahl wrote: post #161
tenderfault wrote: post #60

So happy to see Andrei Alexandrescu was included in this documentary. His book on modern C++ design was a mind opener at the time I read it. Maybe still is today. Anybody else read it?

Agreed, _Modern C++ Design_ is probably the programming book I've gotten the most out of in my career.

hmm, yes it's interesting but honestly - not much of the stuff is usable IRL

the only thing i was regularly using (Loki library) for was the assoc_vector

Re: C++: The Documentary

#248

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #241
wasmperson wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your perspective on this may be distorted due to your personal involvement. Do you believe MSVC++ or Turbo C++ would still have existed without Zortech C++ arriving first? Because if so then I don't think you can really take credit for C++ popularity on the PC.

> Do you believe MSVC++ or Turbo C++ would still have existed without Zortech C++ arriving first? Nope. As I mentioned, Borland was working on their own OOP C language. ZTC++'s success caused them to abandon it and do Turbo C++. I know this because of my conversations with Eugene Wang. And Turbo C++'s success caused Microsoft to do MSVC++, which was quite late to the game. Before C++, the newsgroup traffic on C++ and…

You can verify some of this by:

1. looking at newsgroup programming language traffic over time

2. looking at the release dates of Zortech C++, Turbo C++, and MSVC++

3. looking at the programming magazines of the time and what language/compiler they used

4. looking at the programming magazines at the time and seeing they were all about programming on the PC, not mainframes, and not Unix.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#249

Post by orsenthil »

fasterik wrote: post #242
orsenthil wrote: post #166

I haven't watched this yet. With all due respect, why John Romero instead of John Carmack for a C++ documentary ?

Romero was a prolific programmer himself back in the day. He's become more known as a designer because Carmack took over as the main engine programmer at id, but Romero was still writing tooling and editors, in addition to doing the level design.

Wow! This is an excellent info.

Re: C++: The Documentary

#250

Post by ergonaught »

tenderfault wrote: post #60

So happy to see Andrei Alexandrescu was included in this documentary. His book on modern C++ design was a mind opener at the time I read it. Maybe still is today. Anybody else read it?

It still amuses me, but Andrei's books were the "last straw" that pushed me away from C++ for many years. Great books, truly, and they helped cement the notion that I wanted to move on to a different language. (Go, at the time.)
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