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I concur. All programming languages have their intrinsic features, but they also have a culture that surrounds them. C++ has a rather odd culture... it's very

I concur. All programming languages have their intrinsic features, but they also have a culture that surrounds them. C++ has a rather odd culture... it's very a very fundamentalist/extremist one, all providing the optimal way to do things with no / little extra runtime overhead, but with no regard at all to compile times, readability, etc. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and it has its uses for games, ultra low latency software, all that stuff. I am proficient in C++, I've worked in it for a bunch of years and can get stuff done in it and solve problems and ship software. C++ job interviews tend not to pay much regard to that, and focus on the arcane finer points of move semantics, rvalue references, ranges, concepts, all this new stuff... which has its place, but there is a lot of that to learn, and in many cases it just doesn't matter. After all, the language existed without it for a bunch of years. Compare this with Java, or python or whatever, where the culture and focus is very much about "can you solve a problem / implement a solution using this language <or not>?" rather than "of the dozens of different ways to do this... what are the differences between each one". For me, I really don't mind using and programming in C++, and I would probably even choose it for many / most projects, but I can do without the C++ people and culture.

NL807 5y ago
> C++ has a rather odd culture... it's very a very fundamentalist/extremist one, all providing the optimal way to do things with no / little extra runtime overhead, but with no regard at all to compile times, readability, etc. It think this is attributed to fundamental rule of not breaking legacy language features. That is the number one rule (much like how Linus is iron fisted about not breaking user space in the Linux environment). However, there is a lot of wiggle room in the way binaries are generated, so compiler authors can get really creative with their optimisation efforts.
- inetknght 5y ago
  > It think this is attributed to fundamental rule of not breaking legacy language features. That is the number one rule No. The number one rule in C++ is "don't pay for what you don't use".
  - jsheard 5y ago
    To be more specific it's "don't pay in runtime cost for what you don't use". As the OP says that courtesy isn't extended to compile times - simply enabling C++17/20 can balloon your compile times even if you don't touch a single new feature, because the standard headers get more and more bloated with each new version. https://build-bench.com/b/FW3EPgB1t0fmpIr1TB_vJbbb0Vw https://build-bench.com/b/FW3EPgB1t0fmpIr1TB_vJbbb0Vw Which is exacerbated even more by the leaky #include system, where you can easily end up pulling enormous standard headers into translation units that don't even reference them directly. The only reprieve is to ban most of the standard library from your project and write your own leaner version from scratch, as most big C++ projects end up doing.
    - riskneutral 5y ago
      There are ways to speed up compilation. It can be done in parallel, and you can get a lot of cores into a developer desktop these days. Plus you can get unlimited amounts of distributed cores in the cloud. Compilation can also be sped up with pre-compiled headers, which will soon be replaced with C++20 modules which will help compilation improve in the future as compilers improve their support for modules. With incremental compilation, you do not need recompile the whole project after every change. Linking in large statically linked binaries is a big bottleneck, but incremental linking is possible in some cases. You can also break your project into multiple shared libraries (DLLs) , and link dynamically at run-time for debugging. It can then be re-built with static linking for a release build. Continuous Integration systems can also help hide the latency of compilation from developers by continuously running build and test processes in the background on a cluster.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - lttlrck 5y ago
        ccache can considerably cut down compile times. Simple to install and minimal config, no change to tooling or workflow... https://ccache.dev/ https://ccache.dev/
- DSMan195276 5y ago
  > It think this is attributed to fundamental rule of not breaking legacy language features. Is this really all that unique to C++? Or are you saying that it's just particularly painful for C++ due to where it started from?
  - bregma 5y ago
    It's not that unique to C++. It's a property of useful things that have been successful for a long time.
  - NL807 5y ago
    Not unique to C++, but strongly enforced. Work groups that standardise new C++ features is very reluctant to make any breaking changes.
netheril96 5y ago
> Compare this with Java, or python or whatever, where the culture and focus is very much about "can you solve a problem / implement a solution using this language <or not>?" rather than "of the dozens of different ways to do this... what are the differences between each one". We cannot optimize much in Java or Python, so of course we do not focus on the different ways of doing the same thing. C++ is needed in cases where the differences matter, so of course we care about the differences.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Most optimization techniques work just as well in Python as they do in C++ or Brainfuck.
- twic 5y ago
  I would phrase this slightly differently. We can't push Java or Python to be maximally efficient (not wasting a single cycle or byte over the absolute optimum), so we don't use them for use cases where that would matter. Therefore, we don't try to push Java or Python optimisation as far as possible. Being faster is always nicer, but it can never be essential to be optimal, because you wouldn't be using those languages if it was. Whereas we can push C++ that far, so we do use it for use cases where absolute optimality matters. Hence the community around it values the ability to do that, and we end up with all sorts of weird and awkward stuff. C++ also has a lot of weird and awkward stuff that is nothing to do with this, i should add. Most of that is ultimately due its age and C heritage, i think.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    Firstly, let's dismiss this idea that C++ can avoid wasting a single cycle or byte, it doesn't aim for that. It aims for a much lower bar, albeit still a significant achievement - it says you won't do better by hand. It will very occasionally not meet this lower bar because some people like perverse challenges. That ludicrously fast Fizz Buzz implementation (so fast that inter-core CPU bandwidth alters how fast it seems) in raw machine code can't be duplicated in C++ for example. But on real problems with real programmers you won't do better by hand and should stop trying. OK, so there are limits. Further though the fact that you sometimes want to be able to do something did not require that C++ insist upon you doing that all the time. There are places where they didn't. HN recently discussed structure layout and padding. You can write a C++ program with explicit structure layout and padding (I think this may not be portable though) which can significantly alter performance - but you don''t have to. If you're OK not worrying about it, C++ won't optimise layout for you (as Rust would) but it also won't ask you questions about alignment and layout, they're just left alone. But for some things they insist. Manual memory management for example. The language doesn't (in practice) provide garbage collection, so you are responsible for picking up the trash even if you don't care about that problem. Arithmetic is another, even if it's not performance critical for you, C++ insists you need to cope with the vagaries of machine arithmetic anyway and care about things like overflow and Not-a-Number. And this burden imposes a real cost on programmers which, at the end of the day, means they actually produce slower/ bigger code than they might have.
justicezyx 5y ago
> it's very a very fundamentalist/extremist one This is C++'s moto and core feature. Don't think it's for you? Then it's not for you.
oreally 5y ago
Stick to non-modern c++ imo. Also in java everything has to be under the constraints of an object before you can do the stuff you want to do. It does seem more extremist to me because it's literally encoded in the compiler ruleset.
fsloth 5y ago
"C++ has a rather odd culture..." I have been writing C++ professionally for 15 years and agree. It has excellent ecosystem in several domains. On the other hand, in some areas the user needs to deal with incomprehensible and user hostile tooling and ecosystem glitches. The weird thing is that more often than not the latter pathologies are considered "just fine", which just baffles me. Modern setups like Rust and it's tooling has demonstrated clearly that high performance native language has no intrinsic requirements to be user hostile. Some people like to think that dealing with C++'s unnecessary complexities is somehow virtuous, when in fact they are a a bug of the platform (but one you need to deal with since if you need to write C++, you really need to write C++).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
omegalulw 5y ago
> and focus on the arcane finer points of move semantics, rvalue references, ranges, concepts, all this new stuff... This is new stuff to learn but once you do you realize it's super helpful.
siltpotato 5y ago

NL807 5y ago

> C++ has a rather odd culture... it's very a very fundamentalist/extremist one, all providing the optimal way to do things with no / little extra runtime overhead, but with no regard at all to compile times, readability, etc. It think this is attributed to fundamental rule of not breaking legacy language features. That is the number one rule (much like how Linus is iron fisted about not breaking user space in the Linux environment). However, there is a lot of wiggle room in the way binaries are generated, so compiler authors can get really creative with their optimisation efforts.

inetknght 5y ago
> It think this is attributed to fundamental rule of not breaking legacy language features. That is the number one rule No. The number one rule in C++ is "don't pay for what you don't use".
- jsheard 5y ago
  To be more specific it's "don't pay in runtime cost for what you don't use". As the OP says that courtesy isn't extended to compile times - simply enabling C++17/20 can balloon your compile times even if you don't touch a single new feature, because the standard headers get more and more bloated with each new version. https://build-bench.com/b/FW3EPgB1t0fmpIr1TB_vJbbb0Vw https://build-bench.com/b/FW3EPgB1t0fmpIr1TB_vJbbb0Vw Which is exacerbated even more by the leaky #include system, where you can easily end up pulling enormous standard headers into translation units that don't even reference them directly. The only reprieve is to ban most of the standard library from your project and write your own leaner version from scratch, as most big C++ projects end up doing.
  - riskneutral 5y ago
    There are ways to speed up compilation. It can be done in parallel, and you can get a lot of cores into a developer desktop these days. Plus you can get unlimited amounts of distributed cores in the cloud. Compilation can also be sped up with pre-compiled headers, which will soon be replaced with C++20 modules which will help compilation improve in the future as compilers improve their support for modules. With incremental compilation, you do not need recompile the whole project after every change. Linking in large statically linked binaries is a big bottleneck, but incremental linking is possible in some cases. You can also break your project into multiple shared libraries (DLLs) , and link dynamically at run-time for debugging. It can then be re-built with static linking for a release build. Continuous Integration systems can also help hide the latency of compilation from developers by continuously running build and test processes in the background on a cluster.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - lttlrck 5y ago
      ccache can considerably cut down compile times. Simple to install and minimal config, no change to tooling or workflow... https://ccache.dev/ https://ccache.dev/
DSMan195276 5y ago
> It think this is attributed to fundamental rule of not breaking legacy language features. Is this really all that unique to C++? Or are you saying that it's just particularly painful for C++ due to where it started from?
- bregma 5y ago
  It's not that unique to C++. It's a property of useful things that have been successful for a long time.
- NL807 5y ago
  Not unique to C++, but strongly enforced. Work groups that standardise new C++ features is very reluctant to make any breaking changes.

netheril96 5y ago

> Compare this with Java, or python or whatever, where the culture and focus is very much about "can you solve a problem / implement a solution using this language <or not>?" rather than "of the dozens of different ways to do this... what are the differences between each one". We cannot optimize much in Java or Python, so of course we do not focus on the different ways of doing the same thing. C++ is needed in cases where the differences matter, so of course we care about the differences.

formerly_proven 5y ago
Most optimization techniques work just as well in Python as they do in C++ or Brainfuck.
twic 5y ago
I would phrase this slightly differently. We can't push Java or Python to be maximally efficient (not wasting a single cycle or byte over the absolute optimum), so we don't use them for use cases where that would matter. Therefore, we don't try to push Java or Python optimisation as far as possible. Being faster is always nicer, but it can never be essential to be optimal, because you wouldn't be using those languages if it was. Whereas we can push C++ that far, so we do use it for use cases where absolute optimality matters. Hence the community around it values the ability to do that, and we end up with all sorts of weird and awkward stuff. C++ also has a lot of weird and awkward stuff that is nothing to do with this, i should add. Most of that is ultimately due its age and C heritage, i think.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Firstly, let's dismiss this idea that C++ can avoid wasting a single cycle or byte, it doesn't aim for that. It aims for a much lower bar, albeit still a significant achievement - it says you won't do better by hand. It will very occasionally not meet this lower bar because some people like perverse challenges. That ludicrously fast Fizz Buzz implementation (so fast that inter-core CPU bandwidth alters how fast it seems) in raw machine code can't be duplicated in C++ for example. But on real problems with real programmers you won't do better by hand and should stop trying. OK, so there are limits. Further though the fact that you sometimes want to be able to do something did not require that C++ insist upon you doing that all the time. There are places where they didn't. HN recently discussed structure layout and padding. You can write a C++ program with explicit structure layout and padding (I think this may not be portable though) which can significantly alter performance - but you don''t have to. If you're OK not worrying about it, C++ won't optimise layout for you (as Rust would) but it also won't ask you questions about alignment and layout, they're just left alone. But for some things they insist. Manual memory management for example. The language doesn't (in practice) provide garbage collection, so you are responsible for picking up the trash even if you don't care about that problem. Arithmetic is another, even if it's not performance critical for you, C++ insists you need to cope with the vagaries of machine arithmetic anyway and care about things like overflow and Not-a-Number. And this burden imposes a real cost on programmers which, at the end of the day, means they actually produce slower/ bigger code than they might have.

justicezyx 5y ago

> it's very a very fundamentalist/extremist one This is C++'s moto and core feature. Don't think it's for you? Then it's not for you.

oreally 5y ago

Stick to non-modern c++ imo. Also in java everything has to be under the constraints of an object before you can do the stuff you want to do. It does seem more extremist to me because it's literally encoded in the compiler ruleset.

fsloth 5y ago

"C++ has a rather odd culture..." I have been writing C++ professionally for 15 years and agree. It has excellent ecosystem in several domains. On the other hand, in some areas the user needs to deal with incomprehensible and user hostile tooling and ecosystem glitches. The weird thing is that more often than not the latter pathologies are considered "just fine", which just baffles me. Modern setups like Rust and it's tooling has demonstrated clearly that high performance native language has no intrinsic requirements to be user hostile. Some people like to think that dealing with C++'s unnecessary complexities is somehow virtuous, when in fact they are a a bug of the platform (but one you need to deal with since if you need to write C++, you really need to write C++).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

omegalulw 5y ago

> and focus on the arcane finer points of move semantics, rvalue references, ranges, concepts, all this new stuff... This is new stuff to learn but once you do you realize it's super helpful.

siltpotato 5y ago