5 ms·

you're correct. c++ isn't a dying language, and it's getting better every 3 years. the rust crowd likes to use that meme to gain adoption, but in the real world

you're correct. c++ isn't a dying language, and it's getting better every 3 years. the rust crowd likes to use that meme to gain adoption, but in the real world c++ is still dominating with no signs of stopping.

throwaway894345 4y ago
C++ isn’t dying, but it hasn’t been dominating since the early 2000s. I have a lot of grievances with the overly-enthusiastic Rust folks, but I haven’t heard them say that C++ is dying as a selling point for Rust. Frankly, Rust sells itself over C++ pretty effortlessly—hell, Cargo versus CMake is enough to get a lot of experienced C++ folks to switch to Rust (never mind the safety features). Anyway, C++ is just getting new features every 3 years—these features are often really great additions, but they’re limited by compatibility with existing features (they’re not the best they could be) and not having legacy features in the first place is an enormous and overlooked value proposition.
- shaklee3 4y ago
  unfortunately, the facts disagree with you: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ it's still dominating and gaining. > but they’re limited by compatibility with existing feature no, they deprecate features as well. this is why the auto keyword of pre-c++11 doesn't work anymore
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    Unfortunately, Bjarne Stroustrup himself disagrees with you that TIOBE represents the "facts": > Most of the popular measures basically measures noise and ought to report their findings in decibel rather than "popularity." [1] I believe he is wise enough to not change his opinion when TIOBE designated C++ as the Programming Language of the Year 2022 (which would mean, borrowing his words, C++ somehow kept making lots of noise). [1] https://stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#decline https://stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#decline
    - shaklee3 4y ago
      your link never said what you claim, and in fact he says it's gaining in popularity if he has to guess.
  - nindalf 4y ago
    Please stop citing Tiobe. https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/
    - shaklee3 4y ago
      do you have a better source? stack overflow says the same thing.
      - nindalf 4y ago
        A better source for what? It doesn't boil down to one metric or statistic. I see you didn't actually read the link I pasted, especially not the section "Evaluating languages for projects". There's several possible ways you can compare (StackOverflow survey, JetBrains survey, GitHub PRs, StackOverflow trends, Google trends) but ultimately it comes down to what's a good fit for your project.
        shaklee3 4y ago
        The claim being made in the original post and subsequent posts is that c++ is losing popularity. this claim is not true, and all evidence points to it gaining in popularity despite the HN echo chamber that it's too hard.
        throwaway894345 4y ago
        The original claim is "C++ is becoming a legacy language". This is clearly a claim about the trend of C++'s popularity over many years. You're trying to refute that claim with a single data point about one year, which isn't sufficient to refute a trend. For example, a single bad day in the stock market doesn't refute the claim "the stock market is trending up over the year". Moreover, your data point is probably just noise--a 4% swing when the error margins are closer to 50%. TIOBE is basically just guessing, and a guess isn't evidence. FWIW, I've been a professional C++ programmer, and I like C++.
        4y ago
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I like how one commenter put it over on Lobste.rs (https://lobste.rs/s/fdcpy3/fish_shell_be_rewritten_rust#c_smjdpz https://lobste.rs/s/fdcpy3/fish_shell_be_rewritten_rust#c_sm...): > TIOBE has +/- 50% error margin and even if the data wasn’t unusable, it’s misrepresented (measuring mentions picked by search engine algorithms over a historical corpus, not just current year, not actual usage). It’s so bad that I think it’s wrong to even mention it with “a grain of salt”. It’s a developer’s horoscope. > TIOBE thinks C popularity has halved one year and tripled next year. It thinks a niche db query language from a commercial product discontinued in 2007 is more popular in 2023 than TypeScript. I can’t emphasize enough how garbage this data is, even the top 10. It requires overlooking so many grave errors that it exists only to reinforce preexisting beliefs.
    - shaklee3 4y ago
      again, use a better source if you don't like it.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        I prefer to avoid horoscopes altogether.

throwaway894345 4y ago

C++ isn’t dying, but it hasn’t been dominating since the early 2000s. I have a lot of grievances with the overly-enthusiastic Rust folks, but I haven’t heard them say that C++ is dying as a selling point for Rust. Frankly, Rust sells itself over C++ pretty effortlessly—hell, Cargo versus CMake is enough to get a lot of experienced C++ folks to switch to Rust (never mind the safety features). Anyway, C++ is just getting new features every 3 years—these features are often really great additions, but they’re limited by compatibility with existing features (they’re not the best they could be) and not having legacy features in the first place is an enormous and overlooked value proposition.

shaklee3 4y ago
unfortunately, the facts disagree with you: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ it's still dominating and gaining. > but they’re limited by compatibility with existing feature no, they deprecate features as well. this is why the auto keyword of pre-c++11 doesn't work anymore
- lifthrasiir 4y ago
  Unfortunately, Bjarne Stroustrup himself disagrees with you that TIOBE represents the "facts": > Most of the popular measures basically measures noise and ought to report their findings in decibel rather than "popularity." [1] I believe he is wise enough to not change his opinion when TIOBE designated C++ as the Programming Language of the Year 2022 (which would mean, borrowing his words, C++ somehow kept making lots of noise). [1] https://stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#decline https://stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#decline
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    your link never said what you claim, and in fact he says it's gaining in popularity if he has to guess.
- nindalf 4y ago
  Please stop citing Tiobe. https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    do you have a better source? stack overflow says the same thing.
    - nindalf 4y ago
      A better source for what? It doesn't boil down to one metric or statistic. I see you didn't actually read the link I pasted, especially not the section "Evaluating languages for projects". There's several possible ways you can compare (StackOverflow survey, JetBrains survey, GitHub PRs, StackOverflow trends, Google trends) but ultimately it comes down to what's a good fit for your project.
      - shaklee3 4y ago
        The claim being made in the original post and subsequent posts is that c++ is losing popularity. this claim is not true, and all evidence points to it gaining in popularity despite the HN echo chamber that it's too hard.
        throwaway894345 4y ago
        The original claim is "C++ is becoming a legacy language". This is clearly a claim about the trend of C++'s popularity over many years. You're trying to refute that claim with a single data point about one year, which isn't sufficient to refute a trend. For example, a single bad day in the stock market doesn't refute the claim "the stock market is trending up over the year". Moreover, your data point is probably just noise--a 4% swing when the error margins are closer to 50%. TIOBE is basically just guessing, and a guess isn't evidence. FWIW, I've been a professional C++ programmer, and I like C++.
        4y ago
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I like how one commenter put it over on Lobste.rs (https://lobste.rs/s/fdcpy3/fish_shell_be_rewritten_rust#c_smjdpz https://lobste.rs/s/fdcpy3/fish_shell_be_rewritten_rust#c_sm...): > TIOBE has +/- 50% error margin and even if the data wasn’t unusable, it’s misrepresented (measuring mentions picked by search engine algorithms over a historical corpus, not just current year, not actual usage). It’s so bad that I think it’s wrong to even mention it with “a grain of salt”. It’s a developer’s horoscope. > TIOBE thinks C popularity has halved one year and tripled next year. It thinks a niche db query language from a commercial product discontinued in 2007 is more popular in 2023 than TypeScript. I can’t emphasize enough how garbage this data is, even the top 10. It requires overlooking so many grave errors that it exists only to reinforce preexisting beliefs.
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    again, use a better source if you don't like it.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      I prefer to avoid horoscopes altogether.