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My main complaints about C++ are lack of a good way to catch all exceptions and mysterious copying/conversions. In Rust, it is very easy to catch all panics and

by slaymaker1907 5y ago

My main complaints about C++ are lack of a good way to catch all exceptions and mysterious copying/conversions. In Rust, it is very easy to catch all panics and conversion/cloning is explicit. Copy is only implemented for types where copying is actually cheap/free by convention. Another good thing to look at is how disgusting std::move is and how straight forward the equivalent is in Rust. Additionally, there isn't anything to prevent you from using some variable where you used std::move (which invalidates the contents of said variable). Rust will not allow you to use some variable if ownership has moved. Finally, I personally despise that you end up needing so many constructors in C++ just to do basic things like the assignment operator.

bsdubernerd 5y ago
Agree on most points. I never truly liked how complex C++ was from day 1, and it definitely got more and more complex over time. I'm using cppreference all the time, which is something I feel I shouldn't need. I also think the C++ i/o library is utter garbage too. However I also think how we got to the modern C++ standard, and how early we are with Rust. I think of all the weird C++ features I had to use over time in embedded, and I'm glad I always had the option to have manual control over memory sizing, the ability to alias pointers and everything that you normally wouldn't want or consider unsafe. I also think of Rust and this hell-bent approach to memory safety, and actually think that on embedded I basically never have dynamic memory allocation, and very rarely have issues with ownership that I could solve nicely (without fighting with the very limited lifetime constraints we can have) with Rust. On small targets there is no memory allocation. There's often no copying at all, because it's too expensive: ids and counters are often exchanged over shared buffers. What I feel is a massive improvement in terms of safety in embedded are state machine compilers more than memory safety. Think "ragel", or similar compilers. Using these in embedded couple with wither C or C++ is a game-changer. Memory safety and pointer lifetimes start to be an issue with much bigger targets. I don't have experience with kernel development, but if you can run linux on a platform I would hardly call it "embedded". Or at the very least, we're talking about the very high-end embedded platforms.

bsdubernerd 5y ago

Agree on most points. I never truly liked how complex C++ was from day 1, and it definitely got more and more complex over time. I'm using cppreference all the time, which is something I feel I shouldn't need. I also think the C++ i/o library is utter garbage too. However I also think how we got to the modern C++ standard, and how early we are with Rust. I think of all the weird C++ features I had to use over time in embedded, and I'm glad I always had the option to have manual control over memory sizing, the ability to alias pointers and everything that you normally wouldn't want or consider unsafe. I also think of Rust and this hell-bent approach to memory safety, and actually think that on embedded I basically never have dynamic memory allocation, and very rarely have issues with ownership that I could solve nicely (without fighting with the very limited lifetime constraints we can have) with Rust. On small targets there is no memory allocation. There's often no copying at all, because it's too expensive: ids and counters are often exchanged over shared buffers. What I feel is a massive improvement in terms of safety in embedded are state machine compilers more than memory safety. Think "ragel", or similar compilers. Using these in embedded couple with wither C or C++ is a game-changer. Memory safety and pointer lifetimes start to be an issue with much bigger targets. I don't have experience with kernel development, but if you can run linux on a platform I would hardly call it "embedded". Or at the very least, we're talking about the very high-end embedded platforms.