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> I used to be a C++ diehard, but modern C++ is why I started learning Rust. If I'm going to have to learn a whole bunch of new idioms and rules You don't. Jus

> I used to be a C++ diehard, but modern C++ is why I started learning Rust. If I'm going to have to learn a whole bunch of new idioms and rules You don't. Just because you bump a version number it doesn't mean you are forced to use all the bells and whistles.

Rizz 7y ago
That stops working once you're no longer a solo developer, but part of a team, then you need to learn everything any of your fellow developers might use. You might as well focus on learning a new language and having access to new jobs where you don't have to deal with legacy languages.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > That stops working once you're no longer a solo developer It doesn't. If you have any experience working on C++ projects you will be very aware that deciding which feature is and is not used is the kind of stuff which is defined in the project's coding guidelines docs, along with naming conventions and choice of build system. With C++ you only have to use a feature introduced after C++11 if you decide you really want to use it. Some projects even in this very day still don't use smart pointers or exceptionsor std::array. Some people still do the old C with classes thing. Moreover, the world does not come to an end if you arrive at a project and need to learn a feature provided by a programming language.
  - cowsandmilk 7y ago
    > If you have any experience working on C++ projects you will be very aware that deciding which feature is and is not used is the kind of stuff which is defined in the project's coding guidelines And you will find that you have to learn these features once they are allowed in the guidelines. Some workplaces stick to the old features. Some regularly update with pushes toward use of modern features. When your coding guidelines prefer modern C++, you have to learn it.
    - tcbawo 7y ago
      The sentiment of dreading having to learn new language features (as in being forced to) does not compute to me. Being a software developer, you should always be learning new things.
      - armitron 7y ago
        The complexity that emerges out of C++ with most/all of its features is immense to the point where it's clearly not worth the investment when there are so many alternatives out there. Nobody should be expected to deal with a language so complex that it takes a decade or more of effort before one can say with confidence he truly understands it. Which is why C++ is dying and those other alternatives are finding so much appeal with new generations of programmers.
  - simias 7y ago
    That's a very optimistic way of looking at things. More than a decade ago (pre-C++11) I used to be a pretty proficient C++ developer. I had a bunch of books about C++ designs, I would use Boost left and right, I knew my design patters, I knew advanced templating tricks etc... Then I kind of grew frustrated by the complexity and super long build times and for a few years I left C++ on the side, going back to C and other languages. Now I'm a big fan of Rust. These days when I see a modern C++ codebase using "auto" all over the place, lambdas, the new constructor/initializer syntax, std::move and more, it can be very tricky for me to understand what some code is doing. I feel like I'm reading a new C-based language where I can understand most of it but I feel like some key components are eluding me. Generally I end up figuring it out but I really don't feel comfortable modifying the code because I don't understand all the implications. Very few languages, especially as old and huge as C++, change so drastically and so fast. And again, I considered myself an advanced C++ user not so long ago. >With C++ you only have to use a feature introduced after C++11 if you decide you really want to use it. If you're the original developer who makes the decisions. If you end up working on a project using a different subset than the one you're used to then you're screwed. That's what the parent is talking about.
    - jcelerier 7y ago
      > Now I'm a big fan of Rust. > These days when I see a modern C++ codebase using "auto" all over the place, lambdas, the new constructor/initializer syntax, std::move and more, it can be very tricky for me to understand what some code is doing. But what if you had spent 1/10th of the time you spent learning Rust looking at these features (frankly looking at the wikipedia pages for each revision is enough most of the time I think : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B20 )
      - imron 7y ago
        > But what if you had spent 1/10th of the time you spent learning Rust looking at these features You can write object-oriented code in C too (e.g. gtk, glib etc). It just involves much more boilerplate, and it doesn't offer the same amount of built-in safety guarantees. So I know enough Modern C++ to use it, but why would I when there are far better alternatives?
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  True to some extent but education is good and knowing the language you are using can only be a good thing. The same could be said of English. Would you switch to another language because someone uses a word you have never used before?
- vips7L 7y ago
  Let's not pretend there are jobs in Rust or whatever you think replaces C++.
nmca 7y ago
On the flip side, I learned low-level programming in rust, and am thankful that $bigcorp uses modern c++ so the initial gap was smaller. Rust is still better though.
gumby 7y ago
Think about it the opposite way: the modern language gives you a much safer and more expressive way to express your algorithms and still gives you access to the large library of existing code.
imron 7y ago
> Just because you bump a version number it doesn't mean you are forced to use all the bells and whistles. But I want to use those features. I want memory safety and a way to say this variable owns the memory, vs that variable which is only borrowing it. I want move semantics in some cases and copy semantics in others. I want lambdas so I don't need to define new functions (or classes) to handle simple visitor patterns (or other cases where passing a 'function' makes sense). These are good, useful features that I'd like to use to make my code more safe, more performant and more readable, and while C++ can do these things to some degree, there's boiler plate and new rules (rule of 5 vs rule of 3) and gotchas, compared to a language like Rust that has these things built in, with more safety and without compromising performance, and for me it made sense to start using it instead. I still have projects in C++ that I'll maintain with modernish C++ rather than re-writing them, but for new things where I have a say in the matter, I'll choose Rust.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  I see that you have not kept up. Since C++17 it's "rule of zero": you don't need to write any of them, because the compiler does it. As the language gets more capable, the code you write gets simpler. I don't think that is happening in Rust.
  - imron 7y ago
    > I see that you have not kept up. I have not (C++14 onwards was roughly where I started paying less attention), and that was partly my point. C++ has gone through dramatic change, and if I'm going to go through that dramatic change, I might as well do it with a language that has modern features and safety built in, and doesn't require extra boilerplate to do it. Looking up the rule of zero, it seems there's still some debate about whether it's a good thing or not [0] (don't know if it's been resolved yet), and it still doesn't preclude you from knowing about the rule of 5 and the side-effects of declaring or not declaring certain operators/constructors/destructors. > As the language gets more capable, the code you write gets simpler. > I don't think that is happening in Rust. This happens quite often in Rust, see for example error handling and the evolution of the ? operator, and the recent addition of async/await, and unlike c++, as the language gets more capable the changes required in terms of coding style and updating your mental model of how things work is usually not so dramatic. 0: http://scottmeyers.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-concern-about-rule-of-zero.html http://scottmeyers.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-concern-about-rule...

Rizz 7y ago

That stops working once you're no longer a solo developer, but part of a team, then you need to learn everything any of your fellow developers might use. You might as well focus on learning a new language and having access to new jobs where you don't have to deal with legacy languages.

rumanator 7y ago
> That stops working once you're no longer a solo developer It doesn't. If you have any experience working on C++ projects you will be very aware that deciding which feature is and is not used is the kind of stuff which is defined in the project's coding guidelines docs, along with naming conventions and choice of build system. With C++ you only have to use a feature introduced after C++11 if you decide you really want to use it. Some projects even in this very day still don't use smart pointers or exceptionsor std::array. Some people still do the old C with classes thing. Moreover, the world does not come to an end if you arrive at a project and need to learn a feature provided by a programming language.
- cowsandmilk 7y ago
  > If you have any experience working on C++ projects you will be very aware that deciding which feature is and is not used is the kind of stuff which is defined in the project's coding guidelines And you will find that you have to learn these features once they are allowed in the guidelines. Some workplaces stick to the old features. Some regularly update with pushes toward use of modern features. When your coding guidelines prefer modern C++, you have to learn it.
  - tcbawo 7y ago
    The sentiment of dreading having to learn new language features (as in being forced to) does not compute to me. Being a software developer, you should always be learning new things.
    - armitron 7y ago
      The complexity that emerges out of C++ with most/all of its features is immense to the point where it's clearly not worth the investment when there are so many alternatives out there. Nobody should be expected to deal with a language so complex that it takes a decade or more of effort before one can say with confidence he truly understands it. Which is why C++ is dying and those other alternatives are finding so much appeal with new generations of programmers.
- simias 7y ago
  That's a very optimistic way of looking at things. More than a decade ago (pre-C++11) I used to be a pretty proficient C++ developer. I had a bunch of books about C++ designs, I would use Boost left and right, I knew my design patters, I knew advanced templating tricks etc... Then I kind of grew frustrated by the complexity and super long build times and for a few years I left C++ on the side, going back to C and other languages. Now I'm a big fan of Rust. These days when I see a modern C++ codebase using "auto" all over the place, lambdas, the new constructor/initializer syntax, std::move and more, it can be very tricky for me to understand what some code is doing. I feel like I'm reading a new C-based language where I can understand most of it but I feel like some key components are eluding me. Generally I end up figuring it out but I really don't feel comfortable modifying the code because I don't understand all the implications. Very few languages, especially as old and huge as C++, change so drastically and so fast. And again, I considered myself an advanced C++ user not so long ago. >With C++ you only have to use a feature introduced after C++11 if you decide you really want to use it. If you're the original developer who makes the decisions. If you end up working on a project using a different subset than the one you're used to then you're screwed. That's what the parent is talking about.
  - jcelerier 7y ago
    > Now I'm a big fan of Rust. > These days when I see a modern C++ codebase using "auto" all over the place, lambdas, the new constructor/initializer syntax, std::move and more, it can be very tricky for me to understand what some code is doing. But what if you had spent 1/10th of the time you spent learning Rust looking at these features (frankly looking at the wikipedia pages for each revision is enough most of the time I think : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B20 )
    - imron 7y ago
      > But what if you had spent 1/10th of the time you spent learning Rust looking at these features You can write object-oriented code in C too (e.g. gtk, glib etc). It just involves much more boilerplate, and it doesn't offer the same amount of built-in safety guarantees. So I know enough Modern C++ to use it, but why would I when there are far better alternatives?
72deluxe 7y ago
True to some extent but education is good and knowing the language you are using can only be a good thing. The same could be said of English. Would you switch to another language because someone uses a word you have never used before?
vips7L 7y ago
Let's not pretend there are jobs in Rust or whatever you think replaces C++.

nmca 7y ago

On the flip side, I learned low-level programming in rust, and am thankful that $bigcorp uses modern c++ so the initial gap was smaller. Rust is still better though.

gumby 7y ago

Think about it the opposite way: the modern language gives you a much safer and more expressive way to express your algorithms and still gives you access to the large library of existing code.

imron 7y ago

> Just because you bump a version number it doesn't mean you are forced to use all the bells and whistles. But I want to use those features. I want memory safety and a way to say this variable owns the memory, vs that variable which is only borrowing it. I want move semantics in some cases and copy semantics in others. I want lambdas so I don't need to define new functions (or classes) to handle simple visitor patterns (or other cases where passing a 'function' makes sense). These are good, useful features that I'd like to use to make my code more safe, more performant and more readable, and while C++ can do these things to some degree, there's boiler plate and new rules (rule of 5 vs rule of 3) and gotchas, compared to a language like Rust that has these things built in, with more safety and without compromising performance, and for me it made sense to start using it instead. I still have projects in C++ that I'll maintain with modernish C++ rather than re-writing them, but for new things where I have a say in the matter, I'll choose Rust.

ncmncm 7y ago
I see that you have not kept up. Since C++17 it's "rule of zero": you don't need to write any of them, because the compiler does it. As the language gets more capable, the code you write gets simpler. I don't think that is happening in Rust.
- imron 7y ago
  > I see that you have not kept up. I have not (C++14 onwards was roughly where I started paying less attention), and that was partly my point. C++ has gone through dramatic change, and if I'm going to go through that dramatic change, I might as well do it with a language that has modern features and safety built in, and doesn't require extra boilerplate to do it. Looking up the rule of zero, it seems there's still some debate about whether it's a good thing or not [0] (don't know if it's been resolved yet), and it still doesn't preclude you from knowing about the rule of 5 and the side-effects of declaring or not declaring certain operators/constructors/destructors. > As the language gets more capable, the code you write gets simpler. > I don't think that is happening in Rust. This happens quite often in Rust, see for example error handling and the evolution of the ? operator, and the recent addition of async/await, and unlike c++, as the language gets more capable the changes required in terms of coding style and updating your mental model of how things work is usually not so dramatic. 0: http://scottmeyers.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-concern-about-rule-of-zero.html http://scottmeyers.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-concern-about-rule...