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In Defense of C++

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Re: In Defense of C++

#251

Post by account42 »

jcelerier wrote: post #202
wvenable wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overloaded operators are great. But overloaded operators that do something entirely different than their intended purpose is bad. So a + operator that does an add in your custom numeric data type is good. But using << for output is bad.

If you've done any university-level maths you should have seen the + sign used in many other contexts than adding numbers, why should that be a problem when programming?

There is usually another operator used for concatenation in math though: | or || or ⊕

The first two are already used for bitwise and logical or and the third isn't available in ASCII so I still think overloading + was a reasonable choice and doesn't cause any actual problems IME.

Re: In Defense of C++

#252

Post by juliangmp »

account42 wrote: post #237
duped wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that to do this you must: - Use a build system like make, you can't just `c++ build` - Understand that C++ compilers by default have no idea where most things are, you have to tell them exactly where to search - Use an external tool that's not your build system or compiler to actually inform the compiler what those search paths are - Oh also understand the compiler doesn't actually output what you want, you…

> Use a build system like make, you can't just `c++ build` This is a strength not a weakness because it allows you to choose your build system independently of the language. It also means that you get build systems that can support compiling complex projects using multiple programming languages. > Understand that C++ compilers by default have no idea where most things are, you have to tell them exactly where to searc…

> This is a strength not a weakness

Massive cope, there's no excuse for the lack of decent infrastructure. I mean, the C++ committee for years said explicitly that they don't care about infrastructure and build systems, so it's not really surprising.

Re: In Defense of C++

#253

Post by dgb23 »

LexiMax wrote: post #98
wvenable wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overloaded operators are great. But overloaded operators that do something entirely different than their intended purpose is bad. So a + operator that does an add in your custom numeric data type is good. But using << for output is bad.

I will die on the hill that string concatenation should have its own operator, and overloading + for the operation is a mistake. Languages that get it right: SQL, Lua, ML, Perl, PHP, Visual Basic.

PHP overloads operators in other ways though.

Re: In Defense of C++

#254

Post by palata »

duped wrote: post #103
bluGill wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that idea that packages and builds belongs to simple problem, large projects need things like more than one laguage and so end up fighting the language

Every modern language seems to have an answer to this problem that C and C++ refuse to touch because it's out of scope for their respective committees and standards orgs

Modern languages don't generally play nice with linux distributions, IMO.

C and C++ have an answer to the dependency problem, you just have to learn how to do it. It's not rocket science, but you have to learn something. Modern languages remove this barrier, so that people who don't want to learn can still produce stuff. Good for them.

Re: In Defense of C++

#255

Post by account42 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #172
taneq wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Division is slow, though. You should use something like: right_shifted = (int)(value * pow(2, -bits) - 0.5)

Or just rely on the compiler to automatically do trivial conversions. Which are pretty reliable these days.

I'm pretty sure the post you are responding to is not seriously suggesting using floating point multiplication and exponentiation as a performance optimization ;)

Re: In Defense of C++

#256

Post by Attrecomet »

ecshafer wrote: post #95
wvenable wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overloaded operators are great. But overloaded operators that do something entirely different than their intended purpose is bad. So a + operator that does an add in your custom numeric data type is good. But using << for output is bad.

The first programming language that used overloaded operators I really got into was Scala, and I still love it. I love that instead of Java's x.add(y); I can overload + so that it calls .add when between two objects of type a. It of course has to be used responsibly, but it makes a lot of code really more readable.

Exactly, not allowing operator overload leads to Java hell, where we need verbose functions for calls that should be '+' or similar.

Re: In Defense of C++

#257

Post by account42 »

summerlight wrote: post #174
zzrrt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m probably guilty of gratuitous template stuff, because it adds fun to the otherwise boring code I spend a lot of time on. But I feel like the 90% cutdowns are when someone used copy-paste instead of templates, overloads, and inheritance. I don’t think both problems happen at the same time, though, or maybe I misunderstood.

When people are obsessed with over-abstraction and over-generalization, you can often see FizzBuzz Enterprise in action where a single switch statement is more than enough.

I see that more with inheritance including pure virtual interface for things that only have one implementation and actor patterns that make the execution flow unnecessarily hard to follow. Basically, Java written in C++.

Most templates are much easier to read in comparison.

Re: In Defense of C++

#258

Post by palata »

duped wrote: post #93
palata wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can use pkg-config just fine. Not sure how relevant the "in order to use a tool, you need to learn how to use the tool". Or from the other side: not sure what I should think about the quality of the work produced by people who don't want to learn relatively basic skills... it does not take two PhDs to understand how to use pkg-config.

I'm just pointing out that one reason devex sucks in C++ is because the fact you need a wide array of tools, that are non portable, and require learning and teaching magic incantations at the command line or in build scripts to work, doesn't foster what one could call a "good" experience. Frankly the idea that your compiler driver should not be a basic build system, package manager, and linker is an idea best left in…

> require learning and teaching magic incantations at the command line

That's exactly my point: if you think that calling `cmake --build build` is "magic", then maybe you don't have the right profile to use C++ in the first place, because you will have to learn some harder concepts there (like... pointers).

To be honest, I find it hard to understand how a software developer can write code and still consider that command line instructions are "magic incantations". To me it's like saying that calling a function like `println("Some text, {}, {}", some_parameter, some_other_parameter)` is a "magic incantation". Calling a function with parameters counts as "the basics" to me.

Re: In Defense of C++

#259

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

account42 wrote: post #245
jjaksic wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I don't understand what anything means in those memes. And I'm so glad I don't! It seems to me that the people/committees who built C++ just spent decades inventing new and creative ways for developers to shoot themselves in the foot. Like, why does the language need to offer a hundred different ways to accomplish each trivial task (and 98 of them are bad)?

Ignorance is not something you should be proud of.

C++ is the only language which invests in archaeology over futurism.

You get to choose between 25 flint-bladed axes, some of which are coated in modern plastic, when you really want a chainsaw.

Re: In Defense of C++

#260

Post by palata »

menaerus wrote: post #203
duped wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just pointing out that one reason devex sucks in C++ is because the fact you need a wide array of tools, that are non portable, and require learning and teaching magic incantations at the command line or in build scripts to work, doesn't foster what one could call a "good" experience. Frankly the idea that your compiler driver should not be a basic build system, package manager, and linker is an idea best left in…

For most people this is a feature not a bug as you suggest. It may come across as PITA, and for many people will do, but as far as I am concerned, while also having experienced the pain of package managers in C++, this is the right way. In the end it's always about the trade-offs. And all the (large) codebases that used conan, bazel or vcpkg induced a magnitude more issues that you would have to handle which otherwis…

> For most people this is a feature not a bug as you suggest.

Exactly: it makes many things nicer to use than the language package managers, e.g. when maintaining a Linux distribution.

But people generally don't know how one maintains a Linux distribution, so they can't really see the use-case, I guess.

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