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Churchill on democracy: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time

Churchill on democracy: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time C++ is the programming language equivalent of democracy. Nobody is thrilled with it, but it's still better than the alternatives.

tw1984 4y ago
> C++ is the programming language equivalent of democracy. No, it is not. It is a language controlled by a small group of elites of the past, aka dinosaurs. How many day to day developers of C++ had a say in its stdlib or core language features? Literally zero. It is the programming language equivalent of autocracy - it works very efficiently when everything is under control, but it can crash in all kinds of unexpected ways when anything is out of control. > Nobody is thrilled with it You are right. That is the exact reason why we are seeing more and more existing projects moving away from such legacy languages while very few new projects are repeating the previous mistakes by using C++ again. > but it's still better than the alternatives. No, that is not true. There are tons of other languages that are far better. People are walking away from C++ to get their codebases completely rewritten in those alternative languages is the best proof. So far, e.g., I've never seen any single major project that switched from golang or rust to C++. Let's be honest, it is time to completely have C++ written off. It is a liability not an asset. Some old folks can keep worshiping it, that is fine, young people are not going to waste their lives on such backward language defined with a 1970s mindset by a close group of dinosaurs who have a combined age of 1 million years.
- hannofcart 4y ago
  I share your frustration with C++. I have PTSD from working on C++ codebases for 8 years before moving onto languages that weren't as nerve wracking. However, your comment is a bit too harsh and does disservice to the efforts of smart, well meaning people who make up the C++ committee. Also your remarks are very ageist. You can criticize the outcome of a project without disparaging the people working on it.
  - tw1984 4y ago
    > does disservice to the efforts of smart, well meaning people who make up the C++ committee it is small group of people who managed to successfully ignore the entire audience for decades. I'd like to just ignore them when they intentionally ignored all their users. we are talking about a language that took decades to get its networking support into its stdlib. I am not sure who many decades you have, I don't have many. > You can criticize the outcome of a project without disparaging the people working on it. the current issues of C++ are entirely caused by the people who controlled or let's say hijacked that once pretty cool language. I don't know how to address the issue without attacking those hijackers. but I totally get what you mean. here is my proposal - people should all stop using this legacy language, let's write it off, depreciate C++ in 2023 sounds a very good move to me.
- fasterik 4y ago
  The democracy quote wasn't meant to be a comment about the governance of the C++ standards committee. It was the "bad, but better than the rest" idea, as well as the humorous nature of the quote, that I wanted to use to draw a comparison with programming languages. Criticizing C++ based on age has two problems. One is you probably don't have any real data on C++ users, so it's just speculation. Two is it's a logically invalid argument, an ad hominem. If someone were to criticize Rust based on the age of its users that wouldn't be a good argument either. Also, a language being newer doesn't make it inherently better. Bad programming languages are created anew every day. I will take Rust more seriously when it gets widespread adoption in industries where performance and productivity really matter. Take AAA games for example. These projects require squeezing every last bit of performance out of the hardware; toolchain support for a wide range of desktop, console, and mobile systems; $80 million budgets with tight deadlines. Another industry like this is high frequency trading. I'm not saying Rust can't provide these benefits, but the fact that we haven't seen Rust widely adopted in these industries speaks to the effectiveness of C++ for raw speed and getting shit done.
db48x 4y ago
It _used_ to be better than all of the alternatives, but then someone invented a better alternative called Rust.
- xigoi 4y ago
  Disagree. Nim has existed before Rust.
  - db48x 4y ago
    Ok, now we have to fight ;)
- tw1984 4y ago
  and golang I love golang and rust equally. :)
  - tooltitude 4y ago
    They have different tradeoffs and different use cases. They intersect, though.
- fasterik 4y ago
  See my sibling reply to tw1984 where I discuss AAA games and high frequency trading. If Rust is unambiguously better, you would think there would be an incentive to adopt it in these industries where development costs are high and a lot of money is at stake. In reality, there are always tradeoffs, and Rust has some tradeoffs that make it risky or impossible to adopt in areas where raw speed and productivity are really important.

tw1984 4y ago

> C++ is the programming language equivalent of democracy. No, it is not. It is a language controlled by a small group of elites of the past, aka dinosaurs. How many day to day developers of C++ had a say in its stdlib or core language features? Literally zero. It is the programming language equivalent of autocracy - it works very efficiently when everything is under control, but it can crash in all kinds of unexpected ways when anything is out of control. > Nobody is thrilled with it You are right. That is the exact reason why we are seeing more and more existing projects moving away from such legacy languages while very few new projects are repeating the previous mistakes by using C++ again. > but it's still better than the alternatives. No, that is not true. There are tons of other languages that are far better. People are walking away from C++ to get their codebases completely rewritten in those alternative languages is the best proof. So far, e.g., I've never seen any single major project that switched from golang or rust to C++. Let's be honest, it is time to completely have C++ written off. It is a liability not an asset. Some old folks can keep worshiping it, that is fine, young people are not going to waste their lives on such backward language defined with a 1970s mindset by a close group of dinosaurs who have a combined age of 1 million years.

hannofcart 4y ago
I share your frustration with C++. I have PTSD from working on C++ codebases for 8 years before moving onto languages that weren't as nerve wracking. However, your comment is a bit too harsh and does disservice to the efforts of smart, well meaning people who make up the C++ committee. Also your remarks are very ageist. You can criticize the outcome of a project without disparaging the people working on it.
- tw1984 4y ago
  > does disservice to the efforts of smart, well meaning people who make up the C++ committee it is small group of people who managed to successfully ignore the entire audience for decades. I'd like to just ignore them when they intentionally ignored all their users. we are talking about a language that took decades to get its networking support into its stdlib. I am not sure who many decades you have, I don't have many. > You can criticize the outcome of a project without disparaging the people working on it. the current issues of C++ are entirely caused by the people who controlled or let's say hijacked that once pretty cool language. I don't know how to address the issue without attacking those hijackers. but I totally get what you mean. here is my proposal - people should all stop using this legacy language, let's write it off, depreciate C++ in 2023 sounds a very good move to me.
fasterik 4y ago
The democracy quote wasn't meant to be a comment about the governance of the C++ standards committee. It was the "bad, but better than the rest" idea, as well as the humorous nature of the quote, that I wanted to use to draw a comparison with programming languages. Criticizing C++ based on age has two problems. One is you probably don't have any real data on C++ users, so it's just speculation. Two is it's a logically invalid argument, an ad hominem. If someone were to criticize Rust based on the age of its users that wouldn't be a good argument either. Also, a language being newer doesn't make it inherently better. Bad programming languages are created anew every day. I will take Rust more seriously when it gets widespread adoption in industries where performance and productivity really matter. Take AAA games for example. These projects require squeezing every last bit of performance out of the hardware; toolchain support for a wide range of desktop, console, and mobile systems; $80 million budgets with tight deadlines. Another industry like this is high frequency trading. I'm not saying Rust can't provide these benefits, but the fact that we haven't seen Rust widely adopted in these industries speaks to the effectiveness of C++ for raw speed and getting shit done.

db48x 4y ago

It _used_ to be better than all of the alternatives, but then someone invented a better alternative called Rust.

xigoi 4y ago
Disagree. Nim has existed before Rust.
- db48x 4y ago
  Ok, now we have to fight ;)
tw1984 4y ago
and golang I love golang and rust equally. :)
- tooltitude 4y ago
  They have different tradeoffs and different use cases. They intersect, though.
fasterik 4y ago
See my sibling reply to tw1984 where I discuss AAA games and high frequency trading. If Rust is unambiguously better, you would think there would be an incentive to adopt it in these industries where development costs are high and a lot of money is at stake. In reality, there are always tradeoffs, and Rust has some tradeoffs that make it risky or impossible to adopt in areas where raw speed and productivity are really important.