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I'm not in games but my industry is adjacent and I have the same gripes with c++. (Which the author characterized very well.) Although build and debug times def

I'm not in games but my industry is adjacent and I have the same gripes with c++. (Which the author characterized very well.) Although build and debug times definitely are an issue regardless of the performance of the hardware. I find reading C++ "standards" papers onerous and feel like they're written in a way that's deliberately inaccessible. I don't much like the idea of going to CppCon -- even if my company funded it, which maybe they would, I feel like I'd be marginalized for not using template metaprogramming, not knowing the new hotness by heart, and generally being a proponent of C-with-classes. I just feel like so much of the C++ "standards" work feels like it's led by academics who think the concerns of working programmers like me are beneath them. Is there a way I can "get involved" and does my voice have any value?

doctorRetro 8y ago
Upvoted. And I just want to say I agree completely. Your comments re: "not knowing the new hotness" and "led by academics who think the concerns of working programmers like me are beneath them" really strikes a chord with me. I think this is a problem in all of programming these days and has really soured me on the industry.
mattnewport 8y ago
If you want to get involved and for your voice to have value then you have to educate yourself on the subject. Unfortunately too many of my former colleagues in the games industry (I'm now in a "games adjacent" industry too) fail to do this before complaining about C++ and have the same attitude of "it's not fair that I should have to know what I'm talking about before anyone will listen to my complaining seriously". Videos of all CppCon talks from the last several years are freely available on YouTube and if you took the time to watch them you'd see that many of them are by working programmers and not academics, quite a few of them in the games industry. You'd also learn that the committee is quite focused on simplifying the use of the language and on finding more usable ways to get the benefits of template metaprogramming. You would also find explanations of many features that are more accessible than standards papers and occasional explanations of why standardese is the way it is - nobody, even the most academic speakers, claims to find the standard the most accessible way to learn about a new feature.
- iseeyoubydesign 8y ago
  if they dont want to learn c++ then its fine , c++ will live on without them
- foldr 8y ago
  >"it's not fair that I should have to know what I'm talking about before anyone will listen to my complaining seriously". In a way it isn't fair. Most users of most programming languages don't know the language very well. So the views of these programmers are important.
  - mattnewport 8y ago
    I've never really bought this argument. If you want to contribute to theoretical physics and be taken seriously it's expected that you have a solid grounding in physics. This principle is generally fairly widely applied. There are people on the standards committee who represent their companies and part of their role is to speak for the needs of the 'regular' programmers at their companies who may not be as well informed on the language - Titus Winters from Google takes that part of his role seriously. Bjarne Stroustrup teaches C++ to many students and one of his big focuses is on simplifying the language for beginners. To do a good job of simplifying something though you actually need to understand the problem space very well. Simple ain't easy. If someone wants to represent the 'average' programmer then the best way to do it would be to educate themselves on the language and the current state of standardization and then participate as an advocate for those programmers.
    - foldr 8y ago
      I wasn't talking about participating directly in the standards committee (and neither was the OP). It seems that the people who are supposed to be speaking for the regular programmers aren't doing a particularly good job.
      - mattnewport 8y ago
        It does seem that it seems that way. As someone who's pretty familiar with the current state of C++ and also has a long history in the games industry however I don't believe it actually is that way. I think the problem is more one of perception than reality but many of the complaints come from people who don't know what they don't know and I'm not sure the best way to fix that problem. The resources for them to educate themselves are freely available but a certain subset of them seem weirdly proudly stubborn about maintaining their ignorance. I'm not personally that interested in making it my mission to help educate people who don't want to be educated but perhaps it would be a valuable way for someone to get involved. People complaining on the basis of wrong information or misunderstandings aren't likely to be taken terribly seriously though.
Clanan 8y ago
Off-topic but can you recommend any resources off-hand for improving in your preferred C++? I share your approach but have a heck of a time finding quality books and such. (Email in profile if preferred.)
- arandr0x 8y ago
  I enjoy Yossi Kreinin's blog [1] and The Old New Thing [2]. I don't read programming language books, which I usually find to have little good industry knowledge and to be too detail oriented and easily out of date. Although K&R (the one about C) is a great book that's exactly the right size and the examples from the Gang of Four book are actually very on point. Most often I learn code by reading code. OpenSceneGraph is an example of an open source project that has modern ish C++ but no deliberately abstract misdirection. Open source usually does not have super clean code but it's a good way to sample the variety of structures you can find in a project. Of course the classics (sqlite and the Linux kernel) are much too C-like for where I'm getting at but they are still full of lessons for how to organize modules and APIs, how many arguments to pass and where, where to park I/O code, that sort of thing. I posted it here for the benefit of HN readers who may have the same question but I'll write you an email too so you can share what you want to improve and such. There aren't many C++ programmers left in the HN-reading, not just punching a clock demographic, and I kind of miss talking to people who get that. Like the prototypical game dev in the article I go to one conference a year, and it's not about C++. [1]: https://yosefk.com/blog/ https://yosefk.com/blog/ [2]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/
dagenix 8y ago
I find reading medical "standards" papers onerous and feel like they're written in a way that's deliberately inaccessible. I don't much like the idea of going to Medical Conferences -- even if my company funded it, which maybe they would, I feel like I'd be marginalized for not knowing basic medical techniques, not knowing the new hotness by heart, and generally being a proponent of bleeding with leeches. I just feel like so much of the Medical "standards" work feels like it's led by academics who think the concerns of people that don't know medicine like me are beneath them. Is there a way I can "get involved" and does my voice have any value?
- arandr0x 8y ago
  You're being flippant, but your paragraph is the reason we have pharmaceutical sales reps, and the reason they are so well paid.
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    Except the information to inform himself is everywhere. All the CppCon talks are on YouTube. There are tons of great resources for learning modern C++, or learning about what's going on in the C++ world - there are plenty of teachers, among them even Stroustrup. If he isn't interested in putting in anything more than zero effort into defeating his own ignorance, why should anybody else care about him?
    - arandr0x 8y ago
      I've since taken the advice on the other threads and watched more CppCon talks -- I think my problem is I used to google new features and find talks on them, and they were features that were too advanced for my understanding, and that made me think every talk was like that. I've watched a few talks now that are both exactly relevant to what I do and completely understandable. So, I'm glad that in this specific case ranting on the Internet had the effect that I got new motivation to try harder to find talks that were for me. I don't comment on any other website than here and now I know why. I have never had in person a conversation with anybody about C++ that has taught me more than an evening of these talks. I still don't feel I'm ever going to be able to do anything about when C++ is frustrating to my workflow, but at least I have more tools to sidestep the frustrating parts. I wanted to give an update so people would know that the advice was actually really good, and that the talks even though they're hour long, are very dense in information. That said, you (and several of the other posters) are being awfully dismissive of the notion that there are people who work in your language but don't feel confident with it. I may have major imposter syndrome or something but I've (before this weekend) thought if I didn't get a talk at first it meant I was too stupid for all talks. I don't have mentors at my company because most senior developers have other subjects of expertise than C++, which is just a tool to us. My city has several Javascript meetups but nothing on C++. And I think the way I've been treated when saying, essentially, relative to the C++ community, "I use C++ every single day but I don't think I'm one of them", which is being told, "you're not good enough/disciplined enough/confident enough to be one of us", shows that. Most of programming is slowly waking up to the idea that being exclusive and giving people tough love instead of guidance is starving companies out of potentially good developers. I know my coworkers and most of them would give up on a learning resource that they felt was too advanced and would be turned off from any effort if all everyone was telling then was "try harder". (Even though in this case trying harder is 100% the solution.) In most other fields, including medicine, there are high-EQ people hired to fix exactly that, by bridging the gap between where the practitioners currently are, and where the industry wants them to be, usually in a way that's either very high touch or very structured. And in those other fields, if most practitioners aren't reached by the information, or are consistently misapplying it, the industry guilds put the blame on the way their information is being transmitted, not on the practitioners.
JdeBP 8y ago
I was in an IST 5/-/21 committee meeting last month, and sat next to committee members who were talking about the same things as you are. None of them came from academia. The truth is that C++ standardization is not full of "academics", and people involved voice these same concerns. One of my fellow committee members, Guy Davidson, is in the games industry, and the subject of the 2D graphics proposal has been a regular topic at our meetings. * http://cppcast.com/2018/07/guy-davidson/ http://cppcast.com/2018/07/guy-davidson/ * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/cxxpanel.html http://jdebp.uk./FGA/cxxpanel.html * http://cxxpanel.org.uk/ http://cxxpanel.org.uk/
- arandr0x 8y ago
  I'm not a fan of the 2d graphics proposal, some for reasons specific to it (I think it's too like the HTML5 Canvas API) some for more philosophical reasons like 2D graphics is a big subject that may not be possible to standardize in a way that pleases enough people. It's true that the existence of the proposal demonstrates the committee has realized graphics programmers had needs! The discussion around it too does a lot to put the kind of problems we have to work with on the map. Anyway, originally in my OP, I read the blog post and at the end, he was saying to people that have any industry-specific concern with the way they use C++, and the way C++ is changing, to get involved. I was just saying, as a C++ end-user, even one who cares enough to write this, there is no readily accessible way to do that, because I don't work with anyone who's already on the committee nor at Microsoft. So it feels a bit like an empty rebuttal on his side. Writing this here, it's basically the longest discussion I've ever had my whole career with people who really know deep things about C++ and the process it's made by. I'm glad for it but I'm clearly not the demographic the original blogger was addressing! Even though I definitely feel those same issues he outlines.
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    The end of the blog literally lists some ways it's possible to get involved without already being best friends with Herb Sutter. I'm not sure what else you need. An engraved invitation? https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/std-proposals/topics https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/std-pro... https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/sg14 https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/sg14 http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/ http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/ All the papers here provide the email address of the author, so you can contact them if you have concerns. https://isocpp.org/std https://isocpp.org/std
summerlight 8y ago
It's nice to hear this kind of concerns; don't be afraid! At last, C++ committee members are just people like you, hopefully nicer than expectation. > I find reading C++ "standards" papers onerous and feel like they're written in a way that's deliberately inaccessible. Sadly, it's somehow true; standard wordings are typically not readable for laypeople because its primary purpose is unambiguous specification but not education. Generally, I find that it's a good idea to avoid "wording for ~~" proposals if I haven't followed that specific line of proposals from its beginning. But many proposals are still fairly readable technical papers; for instance, Herb Sutter's proposals are generally easy to follow. (ex. https://wg21.link/P0709 https://wg21.link/P0709) > I feel like I'd be marginalized for not using template metaprogramming, not knowing the new hotness by heart, and generally being a proponent of C-with-classes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc Don't worry. Mike Acton is not known to be a strong proponent of "Modern C++", but his session[1] is one of the most popular CppCon video on Youtube. Even if you don't like templates, people will generally respect you. > I just feel like so much of the C++ "standards" work feels like it's led by academics who think the concerns of working programmers like me are beneath them. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/n4790.pdf http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/n479... You can find the list of the participants for the last meeting. Most of them are just engineers and even Bjarne is now working for Morgan Stanley (I think most of "designed by Ivory Tower" concerns can be generally credited to Bjarne being a professor before) They're just writing C++ code as their daily job like you (and very likely suffering from C++ as well). That's why they're writing proposals to improve the language. Some tangential story: except for few exceptions, PL academics are generally not working on languages like C++ because it typically doesn't align well with their interests. Usually they tend to use more elegant, academic friendly languages like Haskell or ML. Or even fancier languages like Coq, Adga, Idris, depending on topics. Or design their own languages. For formal verification researches, maybe C or Java. But C++ is typically considered as a complex, inelegant beast for researches.

doctorRetro 8y ago

Upvoted. And I just want to say I agree completely. Your comments re: "not knowing the new hotness" and "led by academics who think the concerns of working programmers like me are beneath them" really strikes a chord with me. I think this is a problem in all of programming these days and has really soured me on the industry.

mattnewport 8y ago

If you want to get involved and for your voice to have value then you have to educate yourself on the subject. Unfortunately too many of my former colleagues in the games industry (I'm now in a "games adjacent" industry too) fail to do this before complaining about C++ and have the same attitude of "it's not fair that I should have to know what I'm talking about before anyone will listen to my complaining seriously". Videos of all CppCon talks from the last several years are freely available on YouTube and if you took the time to watch them you'd see that many of them are by working programmers and not academics, quite a few of them in the games industry. You'd also learn that the committee is quite focused on simplifying the use of the language and on finding more usable ways to get the benefits of template metaprogramming. You would also find explanations of many features that are more accessible than standards papers and occasional explanations of why standardese is the way it is - nobody, even the most academic speakers, claims to find the standard the most accessible way to learn about a new feature.

iseeyoubydesign 8y ago
if they dont want to learn c++ then its fine , c++ will live on without them
foldr 8y ago
>"it's not fair that I should have to know what I'm talking about before anyone will listen to my complaining seriously". In a way it isn't fair. Most users of most programming languages don't know the language very well. So the views of these programmers are important.
- mattnewport 8y ago
  I've never really bought this argument. If you want to contribute to theoretical physics and be taken seriously it's expected that you have a solid grounding in physics. This principle is generally fairly widely applied. There are people on the standards committee who represent their companies and part of their role is to speak for the needs of the 'regular' programmers at their companies who may not be as well informed on the language - Titus Winters from Google takes that part of his role seriously. Bjarne Stroustrup teaches C++ to many students and one of his big focuses is on simplifying the language for beginners. To do a good job of simplifying something though you actually need to understand the problem space very well. Simple ain't easy. If someone wants to represent the 'average' programmer then the best way to do it would be to educate themselves on the language and the current state of standardization and then participate as an advocate for those programmers.
  - foldr 8y ago
    I wasn't talking about participating directly in the standards committee (and neither was the OP). It seems that the people who are supposed to be speaking for the regular programmers aren't doing a particularly good job.
    - mattnewport 8y ago
      It does seem that it seems that way. As someone who's pretty familiar with the current state of C++ and also has a long history in the games industry however I don't believe it actually is that way. I think the problem is more one of perception than reality but many of the complaints come from people who don't know what they don't know and I'm not sure the best way to fix that problem. The resources for them to educate themselves are freely available but a certain subset of them seem weirdly proudly stubborn about maintaining their ignorance. I'm not personally that interested in making it my mission to help educate people who don't want to be educated but perhaps it would be a valuable way for someone to get involved. People complaining on the basis of wrong information or misunderstandings aren't likely to be taken terribly seriously though.

Clanan 8y ago

Off-topic but can you recommend any resources off-hand for improving in your preferred C++? I share your approach but have a heck of a time finding quality books and such. (Email in profile if preferred.)

arandr0x 8y ago
I enjoy Yossi Kreinin's blog [1] and The Old New Thing [2]. I don't read programming language books, which I usually find to have little good industry knowledge and to be too detail oriented and easily out of date. Although K&R (the one about C) is a great book that's exactly the right size and the examples from the Gang of Four book are actually very on point. Most often I learn code by reading code. OpenSceneGraph is an example of an open source project that has modern ish C++ but no deliberately abstract misdirection. Open source usually does not have super clean code but it's a good way to sample the variety of structures you can find in a project. Of course the classics (sqlite and the Linux kernel) are much too C-like for where I'm getting at but they are still full of lessons for how to organize modules and APIs, how many arguments to pass and where, where to park I/O code, that sort of thing. I posted it here for the benefit of HN readers who may have the same question but I'll write you an email too so you can share what you want to improve and such. There aren't many C++ programmers left in the HN-reading, not just punching a clock demographic, and I kind of miss talking to people who get that. Like the prototypical game dev in the article I go to one conference a year, and it's not about C++. [1]: https://yosefk.com/blog/ https://yosefk.com/blog/ [2]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/

dagenix 8y ago

I find reading medical "standards" papers onerous and feel like they're written in a way that's deliberately inaccessible. I don't much like the idea of going to Medical Conferences -- even if my company funded it, which maybe they would, I feel like I'd be marginalized for not knowing basic medical techniques, not knowing the new hotness by heart, and generally being a proponent of bleeding with leeches. I just feel like so much of the Medical "standards" work feels like it's led by academics who think the concerns of people that don't know medicine like me are beneath them. Is there a way I can "get involved" and does my voice have any value?

arandr0x 8y ago
You're being flippant, but your paragraph is the reason we have pharmaceutical sales reps, and the reason they are so well paid.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  Except the information to inform himself is everywhere. All the CppCon talks are on YouTube. There are tons of great resources for learning modern C++, or learning about what's going on in the C++ world - there are plenty of teachers, among them even Stroustrup. If he isn't interested in putting in anything more than zero effort into defeating his own ignorance, why should anybody else care about him?
  - arandr0x 8y ago
    I've since taken the advice on the other threads and watched more CppCon talks -- I think my problem is I used to google new features and find talks on them, and they were features that were too advanced for my understanding, and that made me think every talk was like that. I've watched a few talks now that are both exactly relevant to what I do and completely understandable. So, I'm glad that in this specific case ranting on the Internet had the effect that I got new motivation to try harder to find talks that were for me. I don't comment on any other website than here and now I know why. I have never had in person a conversation with anybody about C++ that has taught me more than an evening of these talks. I still don't feel I'm ever going to be able to do anything about when C++ is frustrating to my workflow, but at least I have more tools to sidestep the frustrating parts. I wanted to give an update so people would know that the advice was actually really good, and that the talks even though they're hour long, are very dense in information. That said, you (and several of the other posters) are being awfully dismissive of the notion that there are people who work in your language but don't feel confident with it. I may have major imposter syndrome or something but I've (before this weekend) thought if I didn't get a talk at first it meant I was too stupid for all talks. I don't have mentors at my company because most senior developers have other subjects of expertise than C++, which is just a tool to us. My city has several Javascript meetups but nothing on C++. And I think the way I've been treated when saying, essentially, relative to the C++ community, "I use C++ every single day but I don't think I'm one of them", which is being told, "you're not good enough/disciplined enough/confident enough to be one of us", shows that. Most of programming is slowly waking up to the idea that being exclusive and giving people tough love instead of guidance is starving companies out of potentially good developers. I know my coworkers and most of them would give up on a learning resource that they felt was too advanced and would be turned off from any effort if all everyone was telling then was "try harder". (Even though in this case trying harder is 100% the solution.) In most other fields, including medicine, there are high-EQ people hired to fix exactly that, by bridging the gap between where the practitioners currently are, and where the industry wants them to be, usually in a way that's either very high touch or very structured. And in those other fields, if most practitioners aren't reached by the information, or are consistently misapplying it, the industry guilds put the blame on the way their information is being transmitted, not on the practitioners.

JdeBP 8y ago

I was in an IST 5/-/21 committee meeting last month, and sat next to committee members who were talking about the same things as you are. None of them came from academia. The truth is that C++ standardization is not full of "academics", and people involved voice these same concerns. One of my fellow committee members, Guy Davidson, is in the games industry, and the subject of the 2D graphics proposal has been a regular topic at our meetings. * http://cppcast.com/2018/07/guy-davidson/ http://cppcast.com/2018/07/guy-davidson/ * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/cxxpanel.html http://jdebp.uk./FGA/cxxpanel.html * http://cxxpanel.org.uk/ http://cxxpanel.org.uk/

arandr0x 8y ago
I'm not a fan of the 2d graphics proposal, some for reasons specific to it (I think it's too like the HTML5 Canvas API) some for more philosophical reasons like 2D graphics is a big subject that may not be possible to standardize in a way that pleases enough people. It's true that the existence of the proposal demonstrates the committee has realized graphics programmers had needs! The discussion around it too does a lot to put the kind of problems we have to work with on the map. Anyway, originally in my OP, I read the blog post and at the end, he was saying to people that have any industry-specific concern with the way they use C++, and the way C++ is changing, to get involved. I was just saying, as a C++ end-user, even one who cares enough to write this, there is no readily accessible way to do that, because I don't work with anyone who's already on the committee nor at Microsoft. So it feels a bit like an empty rebuttal on his side. Writing this here, it's basically the longest discussion I've ever had my whole career with people who really know deep things about C++ and the process it's made by. I'm glad for it but I'm clearly not the demographic the original blogger was addressing! Even though I definitely feel those same issues he outlines.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  The end of the blog literally lists some ways it's possible to get involved without already being best friends with Herb Sutter. I'm not sure what else you need. An engraved invitation? https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/std-proposals/topics https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/std-pro... https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/sg14 https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!forum/sg14 http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/ http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/ All the papers here provide the email address of the author, so you can contact them if you have concerns. https://isocpp.org/std https://isocpp.org/std

summerlight 8y ago

It's nice to hear this kind of concerns; don't be afraid! At last, C++ committee members are just people like you, hopefully nicer than expectation. > I find reading C++ "standards" papers onerous and feel like they're written in a way that's deliberately inaccessible. Sadly, it's somehow true; standard wordings are typically not readable for laypeople because its primary purpose is unambiguous specification but not education. Generally, I find that it's a good idea to avoid "wording for ~~" proposals if I haven't followed that specific line of proposals from its beginning. But many proposals are still fairly readable technical papers; for instance, Herb Sutter's proposals are generally easy to follow. (ex. https://wg21.link/P0709 https://wg21.link/P0709) > I feel like I'd be marginalized for not using template metaprogramming, not knowing the new hotness by heart, and generally being a proponent of C-with-classes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc Don't worry. Mike Acton is not known to be a strong proponent of "Modern C++", but his session[1] is one of the most popular CppCon video on Youtube. Even if you don't like templates, people will generally respect you. > I just feel like so much of the C++ "standards" work feels like it's led by academics who think the concerns of working programmers like me are beneath them. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/n4790.pdf http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/n479... You can find the list of the participants for the last meeting. Most of them are just engineers and even Bjarne is now working for Morgan Stanley (I think most of "designed by Ivory Tower" concerns can be generally credited to Bjarne being a professor before) They're just writing C++ code as their daily job like you (and very likely suffering from C++ as well). That's why they're writing proposals to improve the language. Some tangential story: except for few exceptions, PL academics are generally not working on languages like C++ because it typically doesn't align well with their interests. Usually they tend to use more elegant, academic friendly languages like Haskell or ML. Or even fancier languages like Coq, Adga, Idris, depending on topics. Or design their own languages. For formal verification researches, maybe C or Java. But C++ is typically considered as a complex, inelegant beast for researches.