An empirical study on the impact of C++ lambdas and programmer experience

Post by gjvc » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 11:03 AM UTC

eksemplar wrote: post #40

alfalfasprout wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically anywhere where you would have used a callback in C code could probably benefit from a C++ lambda. It's easier to see what's going on, you don't litter your code with hundreds (or thousands) of tiny functions, and the compiler can easily inline everything. The fact that you can capture whatever you need makes it super easy to use inside a class if needed (eg; you need to access class members). It seems reall…

I'd much rather have a lot of smaller functions with single responsibilities, but then being middle management I worry about things I didn't when developing. I need the code to be SOLID, I need the time to market to be as small as possible and I need to be able to replace any developer with any developer on a moments notice. When students don't know lambdas you're costing me money by using them, because you made the…

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 11:09 AM UTC

eksemplar wrote: post #40

alfalfasprout wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically anywhere where you would have used a callback in C code could probably benefit from a C++ lambda. It's easier to see what's going on, you don't litter your code with hundreds (or thousands) of tiny functions, and the compiler can easily inline everything. The fact that you can capture whatever you need makes it super easy to use inside a class if needed (eg; you need to access class members). It seems reall…

I'd much rather have a lot of smaller functions with single responsibilities, but then being middle management I worry about things I didn't when developing. I need the code to be SOLID, I need the time to market to be as small as possible and I need to be able to replace any developer with any developer on a moments notice. When students don't know lambdas you're costing me money by using them, because you made the…

Post by delegate » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 11:16 AM UTC

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 11:23 AM UTC

delegate wrote: post #65

The only true conclusion of this study is that students find C++ a bit intimidating. Which is not surprising at all, because C++ is a very complicated language ! It takes years , even decades before you can master this language - even then you probably won't be using all of its features. Back in the day, it took me a long time before I could truly grasp the C strings and pointers in general. Yes, I could write code w…

Post by duneroadrunner » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 11:29 AM UTC

lorenzhs wrote: post #56

duneroadrunner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Idiomatic" doesn't necessarily mean better. I think objectively it's hard to argue that "item != market.end()" is superior to "iter.hasNext()". The latter accurately reflects the programmer's intent, while the former specifies an unnecessarily specific (and poor) implementation of the intent. First of all, using something like "market.cend() != const_iter" instead is arguably better practice (imagine you unintention…

> But programmers shouldn't need to consider whether the iterator is const or not when they just want to know if the loop is done. and they don't: http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/container/vector/end - there's an overload returning a const_iterator. You don't need to use 'cend'. And since insertion and deletion potentially invalidate iterators, 'hasNext()' is just as bad.

    std::vector x_coords;
    std::vector y_coords;
    ...
      
    for (auto y_iter = y_coords.begin(); y_iter != y_coords.end(); y_iter++) {
        for (auto x_iter = x_coords.begin(); x_iter != y_coords.end(); x_iter++) {
            ...
        }
    }

    for (auto y_iter = y_coords.begin(); y_iter != y_coords.end(); y_iter++) {
        if (5 == std::distance(y_coords.begin(), y_iter)) {
            y_coords.resize(3);
        }
    }