3 ms·

Yet another C person reinventing things which C++ already has.

lelanthran 9mo ago
> Yet another C person reinventing things which C++ already has. And yet another C++ person salty that people prefer simpler things.
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  C23 + <compiler C extensions> is hardly simpler as people advocate.
  - oguz-ismail2 9mo ago
    I can't think of a language that isn't simpler compared to C++
    - pjmlp 9mo ago
      Might be, then again C23 isn't K&R C that many still learn from.
      - lelanthran 9mo ago
        > Might be, then again C23 isn't K&R C that many still learn from. I agree with this, but then again, not many people are learning C now anyway. It will die away from natural attrition anyway, is my point. The K&R C does have a few advantages, because the compilers at the time were not so aggressive in optimisation, and will consistently emit code that (for example) performed a NULL dereference (or other UB), ensuring things like consistently crashing instead of silently losing data/doing the wrong thing.
  - lelanthran 9mo ago
    > C23 + <compiler C extensions> is hardly simpler as people advocate. Well, certainly simpler than C++, at any rate. I mean, just knowing the assignment rules in C++ is worthy of an entire book on its own. Understandably, the single rule of "assignment is a bitwise copy of the source variable into the destination variable" is inflexible, but at least the person reading the local code can, just from the current scope, determine whether some assignment is a bug or not! In many ways, C++ requires global context when reading any local scope: will the correct destructor get called? Can this variable be used as an argument to a function (a lack of a copy constructor results in the bitwise copy for on stack, with the destructor for that instance running twice - once in the stack and again when the scope ends)? Is this being passed by reference (i.e. it might be modified by the function we are calling) or by value (i.e. we don't need to worry about whether `bar` has been changed after a call to `foo(bar)`). Many programmers don't like holding lots of global scope in their head when working in some local scope. In C, all those examples above are clear in the local scope. All programmers who prefer C over C++ have already tried C++ in large and non-trivial projects before walking away. I doubt that the reverse is true.
    - pjmlp 9mo ago
      Where do you think the first generations from C++ programmers come from? There is this urban myth C is simple, from folks that never read either ISO C manual, can't read legalese, never spent much time browsing the compiler reference manual. Mostly learnt K&R C, assume the world is simple, until the code gets ported into another platform or compiler. Yet in such a simple language, I keep waiting to meet the magical developer that never wrote memory corruption errors with pointer arithmetic, string and memory library functions.
      - lelanthran 9mo ago
        > There is this urban myth C is simple, from folks that never read either ISO C manual, can't read legalese, never spent much time browsing the compiler reference manual. And yet you know from previous discussion with folks like Uecker and myself have done all those things, and still walked away from C++. In my case, I stepped back even after having a decade of work experience in it. Anything needing more abstraction than C, C++ is not going to be a good fit anyway (there's better languages). > Yet in such a simple language, I keep waiting to meet the magical developer that never wrote memory corruption errors with pointer arithmetic, string and memory library functions. Who made that claim? This sounds like a strawman - "If you use C you'll never make this class of errors", which no one said in this conversation. In any case, the point is even more true of C++ - I have yet to meet this magical C++ programmer that never hits the few dozens of footguns it has that C doesn't.
        pjmlp 9mo ago
        People that contribute to WG14 are naturally biased against C++, especially with gimmicks like _Generic. Internet is full of people asserting CVEs in C are only caused by not skilled enough devs.
        lelanthran 9mo ago
        > Internet is full of people asserting CVEs in C are only caused by not skilled enough devs. Sure, but those people are not here, and usually aren't on HN anyway. The internet is also full of people asserting that CVEs in C++ are only caused by not skilled enough devs, but I consider those people irrelevant too. The reasons for rejecting C++ in this forum have been repeated often enough that you should have seen them by now: C++ has major systemic problems that don't exist in many other languages, including C. It should be no surprise to you, at this point, that people choose almost anything over C++. The fact that "anything" also includes "C" is mostly incidental. No one is asserting that they reject C++ because C is better, they typically reject it for concrete reasons, like the ones I pointed out upthread.
indy 9mo ago
C++ has many things, and that is why many programmers want to stick with C
- zabzonk 9mo ago
  if you don't like those things, then don't use them
  - indy 9mo ago
    Some people would rather have a pen knife than a Swiss army knife.
    - zabzonk 9mo ago
      or perhaps a pointed stick?
  - zzo38computer 9mo ago
    There are also some things in C that do not work or work differently in C++, such as (void*), empty structures (which in C++ are not really empty), etc; and there is also such C++ stuff such as name mangling, the C++ standard library, etc, even if those things are not a part of your program, which is another reason why you might prefer C.
pjmlp 9mo ago
It is like those folks that rather write JSDoc comments than using a linter like Typescript, because reasons. Given the C++ adoption on 1990's commercial software and major consumer operating systems (Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Be), I bet if the FSF with their coding guidelines had not advocated for C, the adoption would not taken off beyond those days. "Using a language other than C is like using a non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users. Even if GCC supports the other language, users may find it inconvenient to have to install the compiler for that other language in order to build your program. So please write in C." The GNU Coding Standard in 1994, http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/standards_7.html#SEC12 http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/standards_7.html#SEC12

> Yet another C person reinventing things which C++ already has. And yet another C++ person salty that people prefer simpler things.

pjmlp 9mo ago
C23 + <compiler C extensions> is hardly simpler as people advocate.
- oguz-ismail2 9mo ago
  I can't think of a language that isn't simpler compared to C++
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    Might be, then again C23 isn't K&R C that many still learn from.
    - lelanthran 9mo ago
      > Might be, then again C23 isn't K&R C that many still learn from. I agree with this, but then again, not many people are learning C now anyway. It will die away from natural attrition anyway, is my point. The K&R C does have a few advantages, because the compilers at the time were not so aggressive in optimisation, and will consistently emit code that (for example) performed a NULL dereference (or other UB), ensuring things like consistently crashing instead of silently losing data/doing the wrong thing.
- lelanthran 9mo ago
  > C23 + <compiler C extensions> is hardly simpler as people advocate. Well, certainly simpler than C++, at any rate. I mean, just knowing the assignment rules in C++ is worthy of an entire book on its own. Understandably, the single rule of "assignment is a bitwise copy of the source variable into the destination variable" is inflexible, but at least the person reading the local code can, just from the current scope, determine whether some assignment is a bug or not! In many ways, C++ requires global context when reading any local scope: will the correct destructor get called? Can this variable be used as an argument to a function (a lack of a copy constructor results in the bitwise copy for on stack, with the destructor for that instance running twice - once in the stack and again when the scope ends)? Is this being passed by reference (i.e. it might be modified by the function we are calling) or by value (i.e. we don't need to worry about whether `bar` has been changed after a call to `foo(bar)`). Many programmers don't like holding lots of global scope in their head when working in some local scope. In C, all those examples above are clear in the local scope. All programmers who prefer C over C++ have already tried C++ in large and non-trivial projects before walking away. I doubt that the reverse is true.
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    Where do you think the first generations from C++ programmers come from? There is this urban myth C is simple, from folks that never read either ISO C manual, can't read legalese, never spent much time browsing the compiler reference manual. Mostly learnt K&R C, assume the world is simple, until the code gets ported into another platform or compiler. Yet in such a simple language, I keep waiting to meet the magical developer that never wrote memory corruption errors with pointer arithmetic, string and memory library functions.
    - lelanthran 9mo ago
      > There is this urban myth C is simple, from folks that never read either ISO C manual, can't read legalese, never spent much time browsing the compiler reference manual. And yet you know from previous discussion with folks like Uecker and myself have done all those things, and still walked away from C++. In my case, I stepped back even after having a decade of work experience in it. Anything needing more abstraction than C, C++ is not going to be a good fit anyway (there's better languages). > Yet in such a simple language, I keep waiting to meet the magical developer that never wrote memory corruption errors with pointer arithmetic, string and memory library functions. Who made that claim? This sounds like a strawman - "If you use C you'll never make this class of errors", which no one said in this conversation. In any case, the point is even more true of C++ - I have yet to meet this magical C++ programmer that never hits the few dozens of footguns it has that C doesn't.
      - pjmlp 9mo ago
        People that contribute to WG14 are naturally biased against C++, especially with gimmicks like _Generic. Internet is full of people asserting CVEs in C are only caused by not skilled enough devs.
        lelanthran 9mo ago
        > Internet is full of people asserting CVEs in C are only caused by not skilled enough devs. Sure, but those people are not here, and usually aren't on HN anyway. The internet is also full of people asserting that CVEs in C++ are only caused by not skilled enough devs, but I consider those people irrelevant too. The reasons for rejecting C++ in this forum have been repeated often enough that you should have seen them by now: C++ has major systemic problems that don't exist in many other languages, including C. It should be no surprise to you, at this point, that people choose almost anything over C++. The fact that "anything" also includes "C" is mostly incidental. No one is asserting that they reject C++ because C is better, they typically reject it for concrete reasons, like the ones I pointed out upthread.

indy 9mo ago

C++ has many things, and that is why many programmers want to stick with C

zabzonk 9mo ago
if you don't like those things, then don't use them
- indy 9mo ago
  Some people would rather have a pen knife than a Swiss army knife.
  - zabzonk 9mo ago
    or perhaps a pointed stick?
- zzo38computer 9mo ago
  There are also some things in C that do not work or work differently in C++, such as (void*), empty structures (which in C++ are not really empty), etc; and there is also such C++ stuff such as name mangling, the C++ standard library, etc, even if those things are not a part of your program, which is another reason why you might prefer C.

pjmlp 9mo ago

It is like those folks that rather write JSDoc comments than using a linter like Typescript, because reasons. Given the C++ adoption on 1990's commercial software and major consumer operating systems (Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Be), I bet if the FSF with their coding guidelines had not advocated for C, the adoption would not taken off beyond those days. "Using a language other than C is like using a non-standard feature: it will cause trouble for users. Even if GCC supports the other language, users may find it inconvenient to have to install the compiler for that other language in order to build your program. So please write in C." The GNU Coding Standard in 1994, http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/standards_7.html#SEC12 http://web.mit.edu/gnu/doc/html/standards_7.html#SEC12