4 ms·

GCed language style just seem so messy to me. I like manual memory management. It forces you to think about lifetimes and encourages better design. Does an obje

GCed language style just seem so messy to me. I like manual memory management. It forces you to think about lifetimes and encourages better design. Does an object persist or is it temporary? Maybe it's a good idea to have well defined state. GC languages encourage lousy thinking and design. GC pauses are still a thing as well.

gameswithgo 6y ago
There are a lot of sweeping unsubstantiated assertions here, and unclearly defined ideas. What is lousy thinking and design? What are the practical downsides of it in the program? Given how many exploits are caused by memory mistakes in C and C++, maybe using those is actually the lousy thinking?
- stiray 6y ago
  This is irrelevant, if you give F1 racing car to an enthusiastic casual driver, you will get a wracked car and few dead in matter of hours. And should I remember you how many exploits we had due to simple sql injection? The last buffer overrun, stack overflow, that I did was like 5 years back and wasn't remotely exploitable. But I agree that not making stupid mistakes takes years to master (in my case 20+). The problem is not in exploits, the problem is in price of people having enough knowledge to not do stupid mistakes and every company wants developer that pays him nothing (or as little as possible) and gets everything or close to it (open source(tm); I want to build a house. I am still searching for an idiot that would make it for "recognition"). And as such they search for most fool proof technology where they could replace expensive and knowledgeable developers with, ideally, street bums that would work for food. And most of the software we are using today is like that: made from street bums. The difference between 1990s software and today is too obvious to not notice the difference, even the "great breakthroughs" and new hypes are just xeroxing what we already had.
  - varjag 6y ago
    Formula 1 is on the bleeding edge of technology, which C is resolutely not. If you're really into car analogies a better one would be racing a Ford T, which is indeed just as unsafe. (No offense, doing a fair bit of C work myself)
    - stiray 6y ago
      You are doing an unfair comparing of c/c++ with the availability of 3rd party libraries. There is just nothing wrong with c/c++. But you cant press alt+enter to get a third party library. And this is the only disadvantage for someone that is able to do c or c++. C, CAN be a bleading edge. Depends on who is using it., based on a simple fact that there is nothing you cant do. Except for the amount of money the companies need to pay for skilled c/c++ developer against the <name your poison> developer. I think that in contrast of common belief, the difference in languages has nothing to do with benchmarks. But it has everything to do with price/performance. And performance is not important today (`I'll just start another "cloud" instance whatever the cost`). So we are getting to the price. 10 monkeys for the price of one "real" developer. Why? I was reluctant to use java/c# software due to a fact that it was mostly a crap (and still is). Now I am forced to use it as there are no alternatives. The software is just another thing where the quality is non relevant to the earning. So we eat shit.
      - tralarpa 6y ago
        Wait, we can also do that kind of discussion in the opposite direction: <dont_take_this_too_serious> I think that most C programmers are just programming monkeys. People who enjoy solving sudokus^H^H^H^H^H^H^H pointer arithmetics and format string riddles and think that incrementing a variable in the middle of a statement is the best thing since sliced bread. Programmers, who do not have the necessary skills to become engineers - the latters needed to build modern systems. I think it's good that languages like C exist, so we can keep those people busy and let the more capable people work on what makes the real difference when it comes to robustness, performance, and integrity: algorithms, data structures, and software architecture. Things that require abstract thinking beyond "Where do I store my pointer so I don't forget to free that struct later?". </dont_take_this_too_serious>
stiray 6y ago
I agree with you. I am doing a lot of coding in Go for my multiplatform home projects and C/C++ at work 8 hours per day. Go brings faster results due to the really great and easy to integrate 3rd party libraries. There is literally no way that I would go for such a large number of third party dependencies with any C++ software - it is just too much work to prepare the libraries for use. The amount of thinking to make Go programs run fast and with low memory fingerprint is about the same as C++ with a huge minus that you dont have a delete/free keyword that designates "now the memory is de-allocated". With go, you need to think hard, I would prefer GC language that has a deallocation keyword, so I can forget about everything I dont care about but still deallocate what I want in specific moment. For me personally, the hugest difference of Go against C/C++ is the ecosystem and how simple is to use 3rd party libraries/modules/whatever.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  Are you actually using new and delete outside your own data structures? I have barely used new or delete for years, I don't even use them when building data structures - the vast majority of the time I make compound data structures out of what is in the standard library. It is only when memory layout needs to be very specific that I use new and even then it is placement new.
  - usrnm 6y ago
    You don't need to use delete explicitly to control the lifetime of objects in C++. A properly placed "}" or a call to something like .release() can be just as effective. The problem is, there is simply no way to do it in a GC language.
    - CyberDildonics 6y ago
      I think you completely misunderstood what I wrote. I was asking the person I replied to why they needed to use new and delete.

gameswithgo 6y ago

There are a lot of sweeping unsubstantiated assertions here, and unclearly defined ideas. What is lousy thinking and design? What are the practical downsides of it in the program? Given how many exploits are caused by memory mistakes in C and C++, maybe using those is actually the lousy thinking?

stiray 6y ago
This is irrelevant, if you give F1 racing car to an enthusiastic casual driver, you will get a wracked car and few dead in matter of hours. And should I remember you how many exploits we had due to simple sql injection? The last buffer overrun, stack overflow, that I did was like 5 years back and wasn't remotely exploitable. But I agree that not making stupid mistakes takes years to master (in my case 20+). The problem is not in exploits, the problem is in price of people having enough knowledge to not do stupid mistakes and every company wants developer that pays him nothing (or as little as possible) and gets everything or close to it (open source(tm); I want to build a house. I am still searching for an idiot that would make it for "recognition"). And as such they search for most fool proof technology where they could replace expensive and knowledgeable developers with, ideally, street bums that would work for food. And most of the software we are using today is like that: made from street bums. The difference between 1990s software and today is too obvious to not notice the difference, even the "great breakthroughs" and new hypes are just xeroxing what we already had.
- varjag 6y ago
  Formula 1 is on the bleeding edge of technology, which C is resolutely not. If you're really into car analogies a better one would be racing a Ford T, which is indeed just as unsafe. (No offense, doing a fair bit of C work myself)
  - stiray 6y ago
    You are doing an unfair comparing of c/c++ with the availability of 3rd party libraries. There is just nothing wrong with c/c++. But you cant press alt+enter to get a third party library. And this is the only disadvantage for someone that is able to do c or c++. C, CAN be a bleading edge. Depends on who is using it., based on a simple fact that there is nothing you cant do. Except for the amount of money the companies need to pay for skilled c/c++ developer against the <name your poison> developer. I think that in contrast of common belief, the difference in languages has nothing to do with benchmarks. But it has everything to do with price/performance. And performance is not important today (`I'll just start another "cloud" instance whatever the cost`). So we are getting to the price. 10 monkeys for the price of one "real" developer. Why? I was reluctant to use java/c# software due to a fact that it was mostly a crap (and still is). Now I am forced to use it as there are no alternatives. The software is just another thing where the quality is non relevant to the earning. So we eat shit.
    - tralarpa 6y ago
      Wait, we can also do that kind of discussion in the opposite direction: <dont_take_this_too_serious> I think that most C programmers are just programming monkeys. People who enjoy solving sudokus^H^H^H^H^H^H^H pointer arithmetics and format string riddles and think that incrementing a variable in the middle of a statement is the best thing since sliced bread. Programmers, who do not have the necessary skills to become engineers - the latters needed to build modern systems. I think it's good that languages like C exist, so we can keep those people busy and let the more capable people work on what makes the real difference when it comes to robustness, performance, and integrity: algorithms, data structures, and software architecture. Things that require abstract thinking beyond "Where do I store my pointer so I don't forget to free that struct later?". </dont_take_this_too_serious>

stiray 6y ago

I agree with you. I am doing a lot of coding in Go for my multiplatform home projects and C/C++ at work 8 hours per day. Go brings faster results due to the really great and easy to integrate 3rd party libraries. There is literally no way that I would go for such a large number of third party dependencies with any C++ software - it is just too much work to prepare the libraries for use. The amount of thinking to make Go programs run fast and with low memory fingerprint is about the same as C++ with a huge minus that you dont have a delete/free keyword that designates "now the memory is de-allocated". With go, you need to think hard, I would prefer GC language that has a deallocation keyword, so I can forget about everything I dont care about but still deallocate what I want in specific moment. For me personally, the hugest difference of Go against C/C++ is the ecosystem and how simple is to use 3rd party libraries/modules/whatever.

CyberDildonics 6y ago
Are you actually using new and delete outside your own data structures? I have barely used new or delete for years, I don't even use them when building data structures - the vast majority of the time I make compound data structures out of what is in the standard library. It is only when memory layout needs to be very specific that I use new and even then it is placement new.
- usrnm 6y ago
  You don't need to use delete explicitly to control the lifetime of objects in C++. A properly placed "}" or a call to something like .release() can be just as effective. The problem is, there is simply no way to do it in a GC language.
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    I think you completely misunderstood what I wrote. I was asking the person I replied to why they needed to use new and delete.