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> C++ is just not a very good language. C is a fine language. This is the attitude that I really, truly do not get. If I want a linked list or any other commo

by TillE 16y ago

> C++ is just not a very good language. C is a fine language. This is the attitude that I really, truly do not get. If I want a linked list or any other common data structure in C++, I include the appropriate STL header and declare an object with the template syntax. It's two easy lines of code. If I want a data structure in C, I have to write it myself. From scratch. Every time. C++ is a powerful high-level language. C is a low-level language where everything is explicit; I know this is "elegant" to many programmers, but really, I'm just trying to get things done, and C++ has served me far better in that practical role than C ever could. I don't love C++; it has tons of flaws (many of which disappear if you use shared_ptr for everything). But I loathe the tedium of working in C.

xpaulbettsx 16y ago
> If I want a data structure in C, I have to write it myself. From scratch. Every time. http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/2.28/ http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/2.28/ makes C development much more pleasant. You could make the same argument against C++ if you didn't have STL.
dasil003 16y ago
When C was invented, half of all coding was systems programming. C does a great job of addressing that need, that's why it's a fine language. The fact that C is not great for GUI apps does not diminish C's quality for what it is, it's just not designed for that level of abstraction. C++ on the other hand, attempts to be designed for that level of abstraction, and so in fact you are better off writing most types of modern apps in C++ than C in absolute terms, but when compared against other languages designed for the same paradigm it falls down due to complexity overload. That doesn't mean you can't do great work in C++, but you have to really know what you're doing, which parts to avoid, etc. C++'s strength is being both fast and powerful, but most of the time you don't really need both those qualities. Game programming is a notable exception.
- wglb 16y ago
  The "which parts to avoid" conundrum shows up as every outfit that uses it in any serious way has a different set of "which parts to avoid". It is just a mess.
nostrademons 16y ago
The comparison isn't between straight-C vs. straight C++. It's between C with a good glue language (say, Python or Lua) vs. straight C++. If I want a linked list in Python, I do: frobs = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']. The equivalent C++ is: vector<string> frobs; frobs.push_back("foo"); frobs.push_back("bar"); frobs.push_back("baz"); The reason people like these multi-language solutions is that Python or Lua is much, much more productive than C++ (as in, many times more productive), and yet the most programs have only a very small core that needs to run fast. You can write that small core in heavily-optimized C, making it quite a bit faster than kludged-together C++, and then write everything else in Python. And the total complexity of the system is still much less than if you'd just used C++ to start.
- rorrr 16y ago
  This is not a linked list, it's a dynamic array. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_list#Linked_lists_vs._dynamic_arrays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_list#Linked_lists_vs._dy...
  - tptacek 16y ago
    That's a pedantic comment to make, given that Python doesn't care about the difference. Ruby calls the same thing an "Array".
    - omnigoat 16y ago
      Well you've clearly never had to worry about memory paging and the cost of indirection, like I have (actually from memory I think you must have at some point?). The difference is real and significant. Try writing a particle system using a linked-list over a vector, the speed difference will be crippling. I really feel that most of the hatred for C++ stems from people not understanding why such complexity exists in the language.
      - nostrademons 16y ago
        The point is that you don't have to worry about the difference in Python, because you don't use Python for the parts where performance matters. If you've got a million instances in your collection, you probably want to write your data structure and key traversal functions in C. Python has a sequence protocol, so you can easily wrap it to operate on it just like a native list (which is really a vector), but the operations that need to be fast should be in heavily-optimized C. In every system I've written, there's been a large chunk of code that runs on startup, or implements a feature that only 1% of users care about, or performs setup for one of these expensive operations but itself only touches a few data items. This usually consumes about 90% of the code but only about 1% of the runtime. Heck, probably 50% of my code never makes it to production at all, because it's exploratory or analysis code that's intended to define the problem, not implement the solution. Why not write it in a language that makes you really productive, and spend the time saved to optimize the hell out of the remaining 10%?
tptacek 16y ago
STL is great. I like STL so much that, after moving from my startup (where we did C++) to a friend's (where it was all C), I backported a void*-specialized version of STLport's <map> and <vector> libraries. It took a couple hours. The pain of C++ isn't worth the benefit of the STL; fortunately, you don't have to suffer C++ to get access to its better libraries. It is flat-out not true that you need to write data structures in C each time you use them. The programmers that do this are, in my limited experience, uniformly bad. I wouldn't even write a linked-list for fear of screwing up a corner case on deletion. There are libraries for everything, and they're plenty fast. They're just less pretty looking.
cpeterso 16y ago
Assuming you can use STL. Many projects can't use STL because of its reliance on C++ exceptions (cf. Mozilla or Google's C++ style guides). If your legacy code or some third-party library is not exception-safe, then you can't create reliable C++ software using the STL.

by TillE 16y ago

xpaulbettsx 16y ago

> If I want a data structure in C, I have to write it myself. From scratch. Every time. http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/2.28/ http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/2.28/ makes C development much more pleasant. You could make the same argument against C++ if you didn't have STL.

dasil003 16y ago

When C was invented, half of all coding was systems programming. C does a great job of addressing that need, that's why it's a fine language. The fact that C is not great for GUI apps does not diminish C's quality for what it is, it's just not designed for that level of abstraction. C++ on the other hand, attempts to be designed for that level of abstraction, and so in fact you are better off writing most types of modern apps in C++ than C in absolute terms, but when compared against other languages designed for the same paradigm it falls down due to complexity overload. That doesn't mean you can't do great work in C++, but you have to really know what you're doing, which parts to avoid, etc. C++'s strength is being both fast and powerful, but most of the time you don't really need both those qualities. Game programming is a notable exception.

wglb 16y ago
The "which parts to avoid" conundrum shows up as every outfit that uses it in any serious way has a different set of "which parts to avoid". It is just a mess.

nostrademons 16y ago

The comparison isn't between straight-C vs. straight C++. It's between C with a good glue language (say, Python or Lua) vs. straight C++. If I want a linked list in Python, I do: frobs = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']. The equivalent C++ is: vector<string> frobs; frobs.push_back("foo"); frobs.push_back("bar"); frobs.push_back("baz"); The reason people like these multi-language solutions is that Python or Lua is much, much more productive than C++ (as in, many times more productive), and yet the most programs have only a very small core that needs to run fast. You can write that small core in heavily-optimized C, making it quite a bit faster than kludged-together C++, and then write everything else in Python. And the total complexity of the system is still much less than if you'd just used C++ to start.

rorrr 16y ago
This is not a linked list, it's a dynamic array. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_list#Linked_lists_vs._dynamic_arrays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_list#Linked_lists_vs._dy...
- tptacek 16y ago
  That's a pedantic comment to make, given that Python doesn't care about the difference. Ruby calls the same thing an "Array".
  - omnigoat 16y ago
    Well you've clearly never had to worry about memory paging and the cost of indirection, like I have (actually from memory I think you must have at some point?). The difference is real and significant. Try writing a particle system using a linked-list over a vector, the speed difference will be crippling. I really feel that most of the hatred for C++ stems from people not understanding why such complexity exists in the language.
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      The point is that you don't have to worry about the difference in Python, because you don't use Python for the parts where performance matters. If you've got a million instances in your collection, you probably want to write your data structure and key traversal functions in C. Python has a sequence protocol, so you can easily wrap it to operate on it just like a native list (which is really a vector), but the operations that need to be fast should be in heavily-optimized C. In every system I've written, there's been a large chunk of code that runs on startup, or implements a feature that only 1% of users care about, or performs setup for one of these expensive operations but itself only touches a few data items. This usually consumes about 90% of the code but only about 1% of the runtime. Heck, probably 50% of my code never makes it to production at all, because it's exploratory or analysis code that's intended to define the problem, not implement the solution. Why not write it in a language that makes you really productive, and spend the time saved to optimize the hell out of the remaining 10%?

tptacek 16y ago

STL is great. I like STL so much that, after moving from my startup (where we did C++) to a friend's (where it was all C), I backported a void*-specialized version of STLport's <map> and <vector> libraries. It took a couple hours. The pain of C++ isn't worth the benefit of the STL; fortunately, you don't have to suffer C++ to get access to its better libraries. It is flat-out not true that you need to write data structures in C each time you use them. The programmers that do this are, in my limited experience, uniformly bad. I wouldn't even write a linked-list for fear of screwing up a corner case on deletion. There are libraries for everything, and they're plenty fast. They're just less pretty looking.

cpeterso 16y ago

Assuming you can use STL. Many projects can't use STL because of its reliance on C++ exceptions (cf. Mozilla or Google's C++ style guides). If your legacy code or some third-party library is not exception-safe, then you can't create reliable C++ software using the STL.