4 ms·

Exactly this - The language is big and getting bigger, and so is the standard library. But this is true of almost any popular language! By the metric people ar

• tialaramex 3y ago
  > A better metric would be "Can write code in that language for some domain". Can you though? C++ chooses to sidestep Rice's Theorem with IFNDR (Ill-formed No Diagnostic Required). IFNDR is sprinkled on lots of the ISO Document and what it basically does is, everywhere the language needs semantic constraints for soundness Rice's Theorem would otherwise make it theoretically impossible to write a C++ compiler so they just say well, if you break this semantic constraint you haven't written a C++ program. The compiler won't know, and neither will you, but it's not our fault if your program doesn't work, it was actually never a C++ program anyway. This is a great rhetorical device - if the goal was to win a debate championship this sort of sidestep is very clever. But obviously it's going to produce a vast amount of nonsense, it's terrible engineering practice, and yet for decades people acted like this was OK.