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> As a long time user of C++, I want to propose a question: do we think C++ will ever reach a point where it is significantly ergonomic and safe enough to use (

> As a long time user of C++, I want to propose a question: do we think C++ will ever reach a point where it is significantly ergonomic and safe enough to use (in comparison to e.g. Python or Rust) via adding new features? Memory safety semantics aside (needed and will be disruptive, even if done gradually) --- You could get 80% of the way to ergonomic parity via a 1:1 re-syntaxing, just like Reason (new syntax for OCaml) and Elixer (new syntax for Erlang). C++ has good bones but bad defaults. Why shouldn't things be const by default? Why can't we do destructuring in more places? Why is it so annoying to define local functions? Why do we have approximately three zillion ways of initializing a variable? You can address a lot of the pain points by making an alternative, clean-looking "modern" syntax that, because it's actually the same language as C++, would have perfect interoperability.

dwattttt 1y ago
It's an interesting proposal. A new grammar which can express everything (legal) that C++ can, can be automatically translated, but can avoid being ambiguous (https://stackoverflow.com/a/794083 https://stackoverflow.com/a/794083). You'd have an existing language with a new syntax; it can perfectly interact with existing C++ code, but you could make those suggested changes, and could also express things in the new syntax that couldn't be done in the old one. EDIT: taking an example elsewhere in this thread; taking an address of an uninitialised variable and passing it to a function. Today the compiler can't (without inter-procedure analysis) tell whether this is a use of uninitialised data, or whether it's only going to write/initialise the variable. A new syntax could allow you to express that distinction.
aw1621107 1y ago
> You can address a lot of the pain points by making an alternative, clean-looking "modern" syntax that, because it's actually the same language as C++, would have perfect interoperability. Sounds like Herb Sutter's cpp2/cppfront: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront
- deleted 1y ago
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- quotemstr 1y ago
  Sadly, Sutter disagrees philosophically with making locals const by default, and I think doing so is table stakes: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront/wiki/Design-note%3A-const-objects-by-default https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront/wiki/Design-note%3A-cons... I mean, c'mon > Show that in today's C++ guidance literature we already teach C++ programmers to make local variables const, and link to a few examples of such guidance (which will contain more details, including examples of problems that the advice avoids). That will start to make the case. If you can do that, feel free to open a "suggestion" issue about it! That "C++ guidance literature" is called the Rust book. Const by default won.

dwattttt 1y ago

It's an interesting proposal. A new grammar which can express everything (legal) that C++ can, can be automatically translated, but can avoid being ambiguous (https://stackoverflow.com/a/794083 https://stackoverflow.com/a/794083). You'd have an existing language with a new syntax; it can perfectly interact with existing C++ code, but you could make those suggested changes, and could also express things in the new syntax that couldn't be done in the old one. EDIT: taking an example elsewhere in this thread; taking an address of an uninitialised variable and passing it to a function. Today the compiler can't (without inter-procedure analysis) tell whether this is a use of uninitialised data, or whether it's only going to write/initialise the variable. A new syntax could allow you to express that distinction.

aw1621107 1y ago

> You can address a lot of the pain points by making an alternative, clean-looking "modern" syntax that, because it's actually the same language as C++, would have perfect interoperability. Sounds like Herb Sutter's cpp2/cppfront: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

deleted 1y ago
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quotemstr 1y ago
Sadly, Sutter disagrees philosophically with making locals const by default, and I think doing so is table stakes: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront/wiki/Design-note%3A-const-objects-by-default https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront/wiki/Design-note%3A-cons... I mean, c'mon > Show that in today's C++ guidance literature we already teach C++ programmers to make local variables const, and link to a few examples of such guidance (which will contain more details, including examples of problems that the advice avoids). That will start to make the case. If you can do that, feel free to open a "suggestion" issue about it! That "C++ guidance literature" is called the Rust book. Const by default won.