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Does it really matter as long as it’s backwards-compatible? AFAIK one can write C++98, compile it as C++20, and most everything should still just work. So a dev
by kevinventullo 6y ago
Does it really matter as long as it’s backwards-compatible? AFAIK one can write C++98, compile it as C++20, and most everything should still just work. So a developer can pick and choose which new features they want to use.
- guenthert 6y agoWhat about the 'auto' storage class?
- gpderetta 6y agoI wonder if it has been ever used on the wild outside of some compiler conformance test. Anyway, it is true that C++ is not fully backward compatible, some things have changed in very important ways, but the vast majority of the code will compile unchanged and breakages should be caught at compile time.
- int_19h 6y agoIf you're dealing with a C++98 or C++03 codebase, you can literally remove every mention of "auto" in it without changing the meaning of the code.
- rramadass 6y agoYou are in a sense both right and in another sense not quite so. You are right in that the language designers went to great lengths to maintain backward compatibility. So all my C++98/C++03 skills are still relevant today. When i see kids say how "modern and better" is C++11/xx i always reply, go read Coplien, Barton & Nackman, Koenig to understand where it all came from. On the other hand the cognitive overload imposed by the new features is substantial and there is a non-trivial learning curve even for experienced developers. Beginners have even more difficulty getting started. Result? Everybody lives within their "familiar subset" of the language. So codebases can be in C++ and yet two different developers can have difficulty understanding each other's codebase.