Web development in C: Crazy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Web development in C: Crazy?

#211

Post by cbsmith » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 11:04 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #205

cbsmith wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, they were developed by open source Linux guys that only care about C in what concerns compiled languages. > C++ was always badly received by the Linux community, in contrast with commercial UNIXes. You mean like KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice, OpenCV, VLC, bitcoin... heck even gparted is a C++ app. The kernel developers obviously have a bias against C++ (and they'd argue that it is a justified bias). User space is a…

>> No, they were developed by open source Linux guys that only care about C in what concerns compiled languages. > C++ was always badly received by the Linux community, in contrast with commercial UNIXes. >You mean like KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice, OpenCV, VLC, bitcoin... heck even gparted is a C++ app. >The kernel developers obviously have a bias against C++ (and they'd argue that it is a justified bias). User space is…

> I use Linux since 1995, and was for some time a Gtkmm contributor in the early days. > I know how it feels to be a C++ developer in Linux land.

The GNOME crowd was self selected to be a bunch of "C not C++" bigots. The KDE community was quite different (even if MOQ is an abomination ;-). The only community I can think of that would be more hostile to C++ is the kernel devs.

I don't think your experiences are accurately reflective of the larger community. Particularly as C++ has improved (really, pre-gcc 3.0 there wasn't a good C++ compiler, and pre-2000 hardly anybody understood RAII, so C++ was kind of a pain), the larger community's attitude has changed. You can see this reflected in the success of the Boost project.

Re: Web development in C: Crazy?

#212

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Sep 21, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #211

pjmlp wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> No, they were developed by open source Linux guys that only care about C in what concerns compiled languages. > C++ was always badly received by the Linux community, in contrast with commercial UNIXes. >You mean like KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice, OpenCV, VLC, bitcoin... heck even gparted is a C++ app. >The kernel developers obviously have a bias against C++ (and they'd argue that it is a justified bias). User space is…

> I use Linux since 1995, and was for some time a Gtkmm contributor in the early days. > I know how it feels to be a C++ developer in Linux land. The GNOME crowd was self selected to be a bunch of "C not C++" bigots. The KDE community was quite different (even if MOQ is an abomination ;-). The only community I can think of that would be more hostile to C++ is the kernel devs. I don't think your experiences are accura…

Coming from Turbo Pascal background I tend to be very critic of unsafe by design nature of C and C++. Specially given my focus in compiler design during the university, which allowed me to have a broad focus and experience in many languages, the average HN crowd might not be aware of.

Having said this, I was already coding in C++ in MS-DOS around 1993 (Turbo C++) and only used plain C when forced to do so.

So I have been part of the C++ community since the early PC compilers were available, and experienced this C vs C++ for quite some years now.

The funny part is remember the performance complaints back then about C and C++, that nowadays people state in HN about languages trying to replace them.

Oh, and I really like Boost.

Re: Web development in C: Crazy?

#213

Post by lucian1900 » Thu, Sep 26, 2013, 1:07 PM UTC

ianstallings wrote: post #156

lucian1900 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we shouldn't use C for anything, if it can at all be avoided, because the likelihood and aftermath of mistakes are enormous.

I disagree completely. But again, I use it daily. The performance and footprint benefits of C outweigh the negatives, which are basically summed up as - it's too much power .

It's entirely possible to have a language that is precisely as performant as C, but significantly safer. Several exist as well.

It's too little safety.