5 ms·

I've been writing C++ professionally for 16 years. I'm doing it right now in fact, but snuck on to HN while a build is underway. OP is right, unfortunately. C+

I've been writing C++ professionally for 16 years. I'm doing it right now in fact, but snuck on to HN while a build is underway. OP is right, unfortunately. C++ is a dying language. Mozilla, Microsoft and Google are all looking at Rust. Why? Because it's probably makes more sense to rewrite a buggy C++ component in Rust instead of updating it to use modern C++ (where admittedly, you have to go out of your way to get things wrong). The damage has been done. I'm also concerned about our ability to hire in the future. C++ devs will either be too expensive, or just not there since it's not an attractive language any more. I'm not a Rustafarian either, I've actually never used it but it would be negligent of me to not look at it. One concern I have with it is that the eco-system may be full of poor-quality ports of C/C++ libs, because that's how people work when they learn a new language.

mantap 6y ago
C++ was a dying language in the 2000s. But they turned it around with C++11. Now it has iterative 3 yearly updates and it's getting pretty good. It's far too premature to declare its death. The pace of development of C++ is decently fast and there's many stakeholders with millions of lines of C++ who are interested in C++ not dying. C++ is taught in universities around the world so the chance of C++ developers becoming expensive is low.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  The C++ that they teach you in universities barely gets you started. I wouldn’t count on those for a steady supply.
- gnulinux 6y ago
  The C++ they teach in universities is either just C, or putting Java spin on C (C-with-classes). I've never seen a decent "modern C++" class taught in universities.
  - mantap 6y ago
    Sure, but that's nothing a few years in the real world can't fix. The point is that C++ programmers are not some rare breed of neckbeard that are gradually going extinct. They are being produced en mass.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    I love that Java spin on C remark, given that stuff like Turbo Vision, MFC, OWL, PowerPlant, Motif++, CORBA, COM, VCL, SOM, CSet++, POET precede Java for several years, some almost a decade.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  In fact, the number of C++ programmers is growing faster than ever. This is evident in the growing number and size of C++ conventions. (Bulgaria has its own, now.) Even ISO C++ Standard committee attendance is reliably a lot more than every previous meeting, even when held in inconvenient places. Attendance will hit 500 soon. The amount achieved at each meeting grows accordingly. Proposals get more scrutiny and draw on more experience. To suggest C++ is a dying, slowing, or stagnant language is objectively delusional. The language is healthier than ever, and going gangbusters.
taylodl 6y ago
COBOL has been dying since the early 80s yet to this day more than 80% of all daily business transactions are processed in COBOL and 5 billion lines of new COBOL are written every year. If this is what a dying language looks like then yes, C++ is a dying language. P.S. I'm not a COBOL programmer nor have I ever been a COBOL programmer.
blub 6y ago
The only language that one can honestly say that is dying (if not already dead) is VisualBasic. Perl and Delphi are probably going to continue to decline. Objective-C will be obsoleted by Swift some day, but is still relevant. Ruby's not too hot now, but far from dead AFAIK. Other than that it's nonsense to say that X is dying.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  C++ is being blamed for allowing people to write buggy, insecure programs. In my mind, that's different to just becoming unpopular; it's dying because it's too dangerous and too complicated. Sure, it'll stick around for some years yet but all those jobs will become maintenance jobs. Very little greenfield projects will elect to use it outside of niche areas (games and maybe embedded - UK salaries for embedded dev are terrible). Both C++ and Rust can use LLVM, so the generated code is likely to be the same. If you were starting a greenfield project today why would you choose to do it in C++? I forgot to mention Go too.
  - krapht 6y ago
    My company starts new programs in C++ because everyone knows C++ already, we write modern C++, our libraries are written in C++, and our bugs are mostly not memory safety issues.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    In fact, essentially all new development in the highest-paid financial, HPC, CAE, telecomm, aerospace, and ML fields is pure C++. Rust is not a blip in any of them, and will not be for years to come. C is dead there (except in aerospace and telecomm), Go is nonexistent, and Java is mentioned on rare occasions. To suggest C++ usage is in decline is, objectively, nothing short of delusional. For Rust, C++ will the one to beat in ten and twenty years, provided not too many have already skipped onto some new hotness. Rust is an objectively better design than anything else that has arisen in 30+ years. That doesn't guarantee success. I used to hope a better language would displace C++, and for a time thought Rust might be it, but that better language turned out to be C++ itself. Nothing else is even on the horizon.
pjmlp 6y ago
While we see some adoption of Rust from Google and Microsoft, all their new releases are heavly focused on C++. React Native, the new Games SDK for Android, WinUI 3.0 release, lifetime analysis support for Visual C++ and clang and lets not forget they are two major contributors to ISO C++. While the Rust/WinRT efforts from Kenny Kerr are welcomed, that it is just yet another option alongside C#/WinRT, C++/WinRT, Python/WinRT and JavaScript/WinRT.
bigjake 6y ago
I don't understand your claim that C++ is dying. Do you have data to back this up?

mantap 6y ago

C++ was a dying language in the 2000s. But they turned it around with C++11. Now it has iterative 3 yearly updates and it's getting pretty good. It's far too premature to declare its death. The pace of development of C++ is decently fast and there's many stakeholders with millions of lines of C++ who are interested in C++ not dying. C++ is taught in universities around the world so the chance of C++ developers becoming expensive is low.

Aeolun 6y ago
The C++ that they teach you in universities barely gets you started. I wouldn’t count on those for a steady supply.
gnulinux 6y ago
The C++ they teach in universities is either just C, or putting Java spin on C (C-with-classes). I've never seen a decent "modern C++" class taught in universities.
- mantap 6y ago
  Sure, but that's nothing a few years in the real world can't fix. The point is that C++ programmers are not some rare breed of neckbeard that are gradually going extinct. They are being produced en mass.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  I love that Java spin on C remark, given that stuff like Turbo Vision, MFC, OWL, PowerPlant, Motif++, CORBA, COM, VCL, SOM, CSet++, POET precede Java for several years, some almost a decade.
ncmncm 6y ago
In fact, the number of C++ programmers is growing faster than ever. This is evident in the growing number and size of C++ conventions. (Bulgaria has its own, now.) Even ISO C++ Standard committee attendance is reliably a lot more than every previous meeting, even when held in inconvenient places. Attendance will hit 500 soon. The amount achieved at each meeting grows accordingly. Proposals get more scrutiny and draw on more experience. To suggest C++ is a dying, slowing, or stagnant language is objectively delusional. The language is healthier than ever, and going gangbusters.

taylodl 6y ago

COBOL has been dying since the early 80s yet to this day more than 80% of all daily business transactions are processed in COBOL and 5 billion lines of new COBOL are written every year. If this is what a dying language looks like then yes, C++ is a dying language. P.S. I'm not a COBOL programmer nor have I ever been a COBOL programmer.

blub 6y ago

The only language that one can honestly say that is dying (if not already dead) is VisualBasic. Perl and Delphi are probably going to continue to decline. Objective-C will be obsoleted by Swift some day, but is still relevant. Ruby's not too hot now, but far from dead AFAIK. Other than that it's nonsense to say that X is dying.

secondcoming 6y ago
C++ is being blamed for allowing people to write buggy, insecure programs. In my mind, that's different to just becoming unpopular; it's dying because it's too dangerous and too complicated. Sure, it'll stick around for some years yet but all those jobs will become maintenance jobs. Very little greenfield projects will elect to use it outside of niche areas (games and maybe embedded - UK salaries for embedded dev are terrible). Both C++ and Rust can use LLVM, so the generated code is likely to be the same. If you were starting a greenfield project today why would you choose to do it in C++? I forgot to mention Go too.
- krapht 6y ago
  My company starts new programs in C++ because everyone knows C++ already, we write modern C++, our libraries are written in C++, and our bugs are mostly not memory safety issues.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  In fact, essentially all new development in the highest-paid financial, HPC, CAE, telecomm, aerospace, and ML fields is pure C++. Rust is not a blip in any of them, and will not be for years to come. C is dead there (except in aerospace and telecomm), Go is nonexistent, and Java is mentioned on rare occasions. To suggest C++ usage is in decline is, objectively, nothing short of delusional. For Rust, C++ will the one to beat in ten and twenty years, provided not too many have already skipped onto some new hotness. Rust is an objectively better design than anything else that has arisen in 30+ years. That doesn't guarantee success. I used to hope a better language would displace C++, and for a time thought Rust might be it, but that better language turned out to be C++ itself. Nothing else is even on the horizon.

pjmlp 6y ago

While we see some adoption of Rust from Google and Microsoft, all their new releases are heavly focused on C++. React Native, the new Games SDK for Android, WinUI 3.0 release, lifetime analysis support for Visual C++ and clang and lets not forget they are two major contributors to ISO C++. While the Rust/WinRT efforts from Kenny Kerr are welcomed, that it is just yet another option alongside C#/WinRT, C++/WinRT, Python/WinRT and JavaScript/WinRT.

bigjake 6y ago

I don't understand your claim that C++ is dying. Do you have data to back this up?