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>This is a function of popularity and time. Correct, both of which you have to take into account when picking a programming language today. >We have to take t

>This is a function of popularity and time. Correct, both of which you have to take into account when picking a programming language today. >We have to take the good with the bad in everything, right? If Rust's future is "spectacular failure like C++" then it's probably going to be a wild success. I wouldn't call C++ a wild success. It's failed to supplant C for its entire life, and thrives only in a few niches.

jhasse 8y ago
> I wouldn't call C++ a wild success. It's failed to supplant C for its entire life, and thrives only in a few niches. Aren't web browsers one of the most used consumer software today? I wouldn't call them niche.
- ddevault 8y ago
  I was measuring by number of projects. Consider that most web browsers also depend on a dozen or more C libraries.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    > I was measuring by number of projects. I think even going by that metric C++ does pretty good. Not exactly "number of projects", but here are some numbers: GitHub statistic: https://octoverse.github.com/projects.html https://octoverse.github.com/projects.html C++: 5th place C: 9th place StackOverflow survey: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ C++: 10th place C: 11th place > Consider that most web browsers also depend on a dozen or more C libraries. That just shows that C is a wild success, too ;)
    - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
      I don't think that metric is fair, either. A large number of C users don't use Github nor SO.
      - jhasse 8y ago
        True. Still it's enough data to show that C++ is a wild success and is used more than just in a few niches. Has it supplanted C? Definitely not. But in some areas it did (e.g. game development).
- apta 8y ago
  The fact that GCC is now in C++ has to account for something :-)
wyldfire 8y ago
> Correct, both of which you have to take into account when picking a programming language today. Shrug, you're not really wrong. Early adopters of Rust will suffer (have suffered) some issues. Maybe you can try it out in 2060, when Rust will be around the age C is now. To Rust's credit, for this metric it's around ten years further along than any other language that we could propose to supersede C today. > I wouldn't call C++ a wild success. It's failed to supplant C for its entire life, and thrives only in a few niches. I disagree, but I'll admit my bias here having spent very nearly all of my career working on C++.
timw4mail 8y ago
A few niches? Every major GUI application and video game is niche?
- orwin 8y ago
  i disagree with the main article, but he is right. C++ was supposed to be more than just browsers, GUI and video games: it shuold have been a better C. It failed. It was supposed to be more secure than C. It failed. Mostly the OOP failed part, because it wasn't that good of an idea (usefull in some case, to do geometry and grapic stuff, and for other, specific cases). And Java's "everything is an object" did not help C++, with countless students trained on Java then writing software with C++ and doing awfull things everywhere. C++15 is really fun to work with in new, clean projects, with either new or very ancient C++ devs, but i would get away from any proposition including a pre-2013 C++ codebase and any "rockstar"/"genius" C++ dev with 2-10 years of C++ experience as a lead. And by the way, nowadays python and Js replaced C++ in the GUI usecase (yes, electron is written with C++, this is not my point).
  - jhasse 8y ago
    > it shuold have been a better C. It failed. It was supposed to be more secure than C. It failed. If it's worse and less secure than C, why is it so popular? Why didn't all people continue to use C?
    - aidenn0 8y ago
      It's not strictly better than C; that dosen't mean it's worse either. Language "goodness" isn't single-dimensional.
village-idiot 8y ago
The standard of success is not "we don't use C anymore", that's an insane definition of success. By that definition C didn't succeed in knocking off Fortran.

jhasse 8y ago

> I wouldn't call C++ a wild success. It's failed to supplant C for its entire life, and thrives only in a few niches. Aren't web browsers one of the most used consumer software today? I wouldn't call them niche.

ddevault 8y ago
I was measuring by number of projects. Consider that most web browsers also depend on a dozen or more C libraries.
- jhasse 8y ago
  > I was measuring by number of projects. I think even going by that metric C++ does pretty good. Not exactly "number of projects", but here are some numbers: GitHub statistic: https://octoverse.github.com/projects.html https://octoverse.github.com/projects.html C++: 5th place C: 9th place StackOverflow survey: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ C++: 10th place C: 11th place > Consider that most web browsers also depend on a dozen or more C libraries. That just shows that C is a wild success, too ;)
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    I don't think that metric is fair, either. A large number of C users don't use Github nor SO.
    - jhasse 8y ago
      True. Still it's enough data to show that C++ is a wild success and is used more than just in a few niches. Has it supplanted C? Definitely not. But in some areas it did (e.g. game development).
apta 8y ago
The fact that GCC is now in C++ has to account for something :-)

wyldfire 8y ago

> Correct, both of which you have to take into account when picking a programming language today. Shrug, you're not really wrong. Early adopters of Rust will suffer (have suffered) some issues. Maybe you can try it out in 2060, when Rust will be around the age C is now. To Rust's credit, for this metric it's around ten years further along than any other language that we could propose to supersede C today. > I wouldn't call C++ a wild success. It's failed to supplant C for its entire life, and thrives only in a few niches. I disagree, but I'll admit my bias here having spent very nearly all of my career working on C++.

timw4mail 8y ago

A few niches? Every major GUI application and video game is niche?

orwin 8y ago
i disagree with the main article, but he is right. C++ was supposed to be more than just browsers, GUI and video games: it shuold have been a better C. It failed. It was supposed to be more secure than C. It failed. Mostly the OOP failed part, because it wasn't that good of an idea (usefull in some case, to do geometry and grapic stuff, and for other, specific cases). And Java's "everything is an object" did not help C++, with countless students trained on Java then writing software with C++ and doing awfull things everywhere. C++15 is really fun to work with in new, clean projects, with either new or very ancient C++ devs, but i would get away from any proposition including a pre-2013 C++ codebase and any "rockstar"/"genius" C++ dev with 2-10 years of C++ experience as a lead. And by the way, nowadays python and Js replaced C++ in the GUI usecase (yes, electron is written with C++, this is not my point).
- jhasse 8y ago
  > it shuold have been a better C. It failed. It was supposed to be more secure than C. It failed. If it's worse and less secure than C, why is it so popular? Why didn't all people continue to use C?
  - aidenn0 8y ago
    It's not strictly better than C; that dosen't mean it's worse either. Language "goodness" isn't single-dimensional.

village-idiot 8y ago

The standard of success is not "we don't use C anymore", that's an insane definition of success. By that definition C didn't succeed in knocking off Fortran.