3 ms·

>C++ is an example of the serious negative consequences of language change. From the outside looking in (as a non-C++ developer), for me the bigger problem is

>C++ is an example of the serious negative consequences of language change. From the outside looking in (as a non-C++ developer), for me the bigger problem is honestly that they left in the warts rather than just paving around them. Those who have followed C++ for its entire life cycle have probably been able to mostly keep up with what language features were mistakes and what the best way to do things is, but I can't imagine myself ever picking up C++ now and hoping to have any clue at all what to avoid without spending years learning the hard way (no pun intended). As a very basic example from C# (which I do use professionally), the fact that untyped collections still exist (and things like IEnumerable with explicit casts instead of IEnumerable<T>) is just pointless cruft that we'd be better off without. As far as I'm concerned, no code should ever depend on them, and any code that does should be forcibly broken to force people to fix it. We treat security flaws seriously by forcing people to fix things, why should we not do the same with features that are essentially bug-magnets?

Pxtl 10y ago
On c#, the numerous core libs that don't meaningfully support nullable primitives is the most infuriating thing.
pas 10y ago
http://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines http://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines
emodendroket 10y ago
> As a very basic example from C# (which I do use professionally), the fact that untyped collections still exist (and things like IEnumerable with explicit casts instead of IEnumerable<T>) is just pointless cruft that we'd be better off without. As far as I'm concerned, no code should ever depend on them, and any code that does should be forcibly broken to force people to fix it. We treat security flaws seriously by forcing people to fix things, why should we not do the same with features that are essentially bug-magnets? I mean this is an age-old argument but MS comes down very strongly on the other side because, like... what if nobody is working on that C# 3.0 code anymore but you need it for whatever reason? Well, I guess you're out of luck in the world where they just break ArrayList.

Pxtl 10y ago

On c#, the numerous core libs that don't meaningfully support nullable primitives is the most infuriating thing.

pas 10y ago

http://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines http://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines

emodendroket 10y ago

> As a very basic example from C# (which I do use professionally), the fact that untyped collections still exist (and things like IEnumerable with explicit casts instead of IEnumerable<T>) is just pointless cruft that we'd be better off without. As far as I'm concerned, no code should ever depend on them, and any code that does should be forcibly broken to force people to fix it. We treat security flaws seriously by forcing people to fix things, why should we not do the same with features that are essentially bug-magnets? I mean this is an age-old argument but MS comes down very strongly on the other side because, like... what if nobody is working on that C# 3.0 code anymore but you need it for whatever reason? Well, I guess you're out of luck in the world where they just break ArrayList.