Why we develop EloqDB mainly in C++ • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we develop EloqDB mainly in C++

#91

Post by reddit_clone » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:48 PM UTC

nielsbot wrote: post #86

reddit_clone wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not always for the better? People eating, drinking and using mobile phones .. I think the luxury of having a hand free with automatic transmission is a contributing factor. Stick shift requires a certain level of attention/engagement that might actually make for safer driving IMO.

I mean it's an analogy, so it's not directly the original comparison. I hate C++ but I concede it's possible to get the most performance from C++ if you are diligent. My argument there would be: Ok, use C++ and C (or even machine code) for the most performance sensitive parts, but then use a safer easier language everywhere else.

I am sorry, I was only thinking about the analogy and not the original topic :-)

As a motorcycle rider, inattentive car drivers are a sore subject.

As for C++, I agree with your last comment. I guess without the gravitation pull of a large existing C++ code base or an existing team of experts or as essential library, there is not much incentive to start new projects in C++.

I too am a firm believer in multiple layers, each possibly using different language/paradigm. I find the functional core with controlled and imperative edges approach very appealing.

Re: Why we develop EloqDB mainly in C++

#92

Post by Ukv » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 8:36 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #89

Ukv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This kind of generalization is so old. I feel you're objecting to the wrong comment. sebstefan appropriately specified "the people who came to interview for the Rust roles of my company [...]", and was giving it as a counterpoint to the previous comment's broad generalization. > there's a lot of Java developers because there's a lot of Java jobs, universities teach it, and it's been around a fairly long time when c…

> I feel you're objecting to the wrong comment Not at all. His comment was worse in that it generalized a whole lot of people based on the minor evidence he's been able to collect. Unless he's had several dozen, at least, Java applicants, as well as dozens of Rust applicants, I assume he's just using the exact same plain old discriminatory thinking people used to employ when comparing, among many things, race and nat…

> His comment was worse in that it generalized a whole lot of people

The only statement sebstefan made specified "the people who came to interview for the Rust roles of my company" and likewise for Java applicants - groups they presumably have first-hand experience with. It was jhoechtl's previous comment that generalized to "the Rust workforce".

> I disagree. It's much more likely, in my view, that newer languages will appeal to people who value the wrong things in a business, like which language they want to use for the excitement [...]

Whether your views on people who learn Rust are positive or negative, you do still seem to agree that there are factors that can cause people with different levels of experience or attitudes to programming to choose different languages.

> anyone with a long experience in trying things will know that language is very low in the list of things that help [...] The only things that really help writing software are static types and tests...

Not necessarily the syntax of the language - but languages will have design decisions and ecosystems build up around them and that can make them better suited for particular purposes. Rust's borrow checker is very effective at reducing memory safety bugs without losing performance to GC or reference counting, for instance.

Re: Why we develop EloqDB mainly in C++

#93

Post by on_the_train » Wed, Oct 01, 2025, 3:33 AM UTC

keanb wrote: post #73

on_the_train wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can change one part of the code, and it will introduce bugs in the whole project because of how the memory is handled Why would it do that?

I suppose because it will start writing in memory that is handled by other parts of the code and corrupting it.

That is an incredibly general statement at best. And reeks a bit of ancient c++ style. This bug would be pretty exotic and nothing I have ever seen in my life.

Re: Why we develop EloqDB mainly in C++

#94

Post by sebstefan » Fri, Oct 03, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #89

Ukv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This kind of generalization is so old. I feel you're objecting to the wrong comment. sebstefan appropriately specified "the people who came to interview for the Rust roles of my company [...]", and was giving it as a counterpoint to the previous comment's broad generalization. > there's a lot of Java developers because there's a lot of Java jobs, universities teach it, and it's been around a fairly long time when c…

> I feel you're objecting to the wrong comment Not at all. His comment was worse in that it generalized a whole lot of people based on the minor evidence he's been able to collect. Unless he's had several dozen, at least, Java applicants, as well as dozens of Rust applicants, I assume he's just using the exact same plain old discriminatory thinking people used to employ when comparing, among many things, race and nat…

>he's just using the exact same plain old discriminatory thinking people used to employ when comparing, among many things, race and nationalities. It's incredibly hard to generalize anything about people honestly.

The reason we shun it for race and nationalities is because you can't pick those, you're born with it.

All generalizations are not the same ; your job, your hobbies, your programming language of choice: these assumptions might yield to incorrect results in the exact same way for the exact same reasons, but they are not on the same moral ballpark