C++ in Coders at Work • Hacker News Board

Re: C++ in Coders at Work

#171

Post by loup-vaillant » Sat, Oct 17, 2009, 9:15 PM UTC

mahmud wrote: post #38

loup-vaillant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. C++ main strength lies in its "portable assembler" nature. However, C++ also is [quite a behemoth][1], while Lisp, Python and Haskell aren't so. [1]: http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/ The answer then is obvious : we should change the hardware, so it is not C/C++ optimized, but Lisp/Python/Haskell optimized. Then, these languages are easier and more practical.

Lisp, Python and Haskell should never ever be separated by a mere slash; they're totally different beasts.

Sorry, of course they are. I miss-phrased my sentence. I should have said "Lisp optimized, or Python optimized or Haskell optimized", or even "lovely language(s) optimized".

But I didn't start this: "Lovely languages like lisp, python, haskell" (sic).

Re: C++ in Coders at Work

#172

Post by loup-vaillant » Sat, Oct 17, 2009, 9:44 PM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #41

loup-vaillant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. C++ main strength lies in its "portable assembler" nature. However, C++ also is [quite a behemoth][1], while Lisp, Python and Haskell aren't so. [1]: http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/ The answer then is obvious : we should change the hardware, so it is not C/C++ optimized, but Lisp/Python/Haskell optimized. Then, these languages are easier and more practical.

No, C is a portable assembler. C++ was created to add "high level" OO features to C. But the success of the effort is highly controversial, because there are differences between C and the OO model that are too difficult to overcome. I think the strategy of objective-C is much cleaner, since they better separate the concerns of "writing fast code" and "writing high level OO abstractions".

Two quotes from http://www.jwz.org/doc/java.html

C (the PDP-11 assembler that thinks it's a language)

C++ (the PDP-11 assembler that thinks it's an object system)

C isn't really a portable assembler. It was designed to be sufficiently efficient on a specific processor (the PDP11, a register based CPU), while providing basic abstractions (function, structures…).

C was an overwhelming success. And so were CPUs fast at running compiled C programs. As far as hardware optimization is concerned, the main characteristics of C are pointer arithmetic, manual memory management, and a relatively low ratio of function calls (in C programs). These are pretty big constraints. So, we ended up with C optimized CPUs. Now what if Unix has been implemented in Forth? All mainstream processors would have been stack based, and optimized for a very high ration of function calls.

C++, by extending C, also have this "portable assembler" nature. It also have a number of incredibly low-level mechanisms which can be used to build pretty high-level abstractions, but it's still an extension of C.

Re: C++ in Coders at Work

#173

Post by loup-vaillant » Sat, Oct 17, 2009, 9:51 PM UTC

chancho wrote: post #106

coliveira wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, C is a portable assembler. C++ was created to add "high level" OO features to C. But the success of the effort is highly controversial, because there are differences between C and the OO model that are too difficult to overcome. I think the strategy of objective-C is much cleaner, since they better separate the concerns of "writing fast code" and "writing high level OO abstractions".

How, on a site like HN that champions pragmatic entrepreneurialism, can you possibly claim that the success of C++, a language that has been deployed probably more than any other except C, is controversial ? It's a matter of fact. C++ won the early OO race. Maybe Java and C# and whatever have since eclipsed it, but it was still a smashing success by all objective measures, and still is by some of those measures. Yeah…

He wasn't talking about the success (popularity) of C++ at all. He was talking about the success of the effort of adding "high level" OO features to C.

I think C++ totally failed at being high level. So, this "success" being highly controversial doesn't surprise me.

Re: C++ in Coders at Work

#174

Post by agazso » Sun, Oct 18, 2009, 9:27 AM UTC

russell wrote: post #122

loup-vaillant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. C++ main strength lies in its "portable assembler" nature. However, C++ also is [quite a behemoth][1], while Lisp, Python and Haskell aren't so. [1]: http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/ The answer then is obvious : we should change the hardware, so it is not C/C++ optimized, but Lisp/Python/Haskell optimized. Then, these languages are easier and more practical.

In general, hardware optimized for high-level languages have been a failure, usually the extra baggage for handling things as machine-level interpreter slow things down nearly as much as a software interpreter. Nothing has been a real commercial success and it isnt for want of trying. Off the top of my head I can think of the Burroughs B5500 which had hardware support for typed data, the Lisp Machine, and the Intel 4…

There is Azul Systems, that produces massive servers for Java applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azul_Systems

I don't know how successful they are economically though.