3 ms·

The language is fine, mostly, nowadays. The ecosystem isn't fine - just to get a project going requires picking a non-trivial set of tools and approaches, none

The language is fine, mostly, nowadays. The ecosystem isn't fine - just to get a project going requires picking a non-trivial set of tools and approaches, none of which the C++ standard enforces or guides to. For example, will you manage dependencies via packages? If so, with what? What will you use for building your project? The list goes on and on.

bayindirh 5mo ago
I personally find the lack of native package management in C++ as a blessing. Go, Python, Rust has it, and this always causes pulling in infinite number of packages for any trivial operation. sudo-rs was pulling in 1M+ LOC as its dependency chain at one point. I believe they removed the biggest offenders, but I didn't check it recently.
- nnevatie 5mo ago
  That's one way to look at it, certainly. There are several OK options in that space, e.g. Conan (2) and vcpkg.
Davidbrcz 5mo ago
No it's not. The language keeps growing, with - new features overlapping old features from previous standards without replacing them or deprecating them (function::copyable_function vs std::function, std::less<> key for transparent lookup in maps) - new features not usable by the layman (coroutines ...) - Cryptic syntax (reflection...) - Stuff you are told not to use because of performance reason and that cant be fixed because of ABI (regex) - Compile errors that are 1km long (no, concepts are not helping here, the 'nicer' message is still buried into a hot pile of template instantiation callstack).
- bayindirh 5mo ago
  I wonder how many programming languages would be able to devoid of all or some of these problems when they are 40 years old. It's easy to compare new and old languages, and saying older languages are wrinkly. Let's see how other shiny programming languages look like when they are 40 years old.
  - Davidbrcz 5mo ago
    Python, Java, Lua, Ruby are ~30 years old, Ada being as old as C++. Sure, none is perfect and they have cruft and warts, but they are not such a mess as C++ is.
  - bregma 5mo ago
    There are two kinds of programming languages: the kind everyone complains about and the kind nobody uses.
- pjmlp 5mo ago
  So a bit like Python or any other language of similar age.
  - whstl 5mo ago
    Working occasionally with modern Python helped me love and respect C++ even more.
  - bregma 5mo ago
    Python3 is what, 15 years old?
    - pjmlp 5mo ago
      I start counting from Python 1.
      - unclad5968 5mo ago
        Well if c++ had the liberty of scrapping the language twice in the last 30 years I'm sure it would look better too.
        SJC_Hacker 5mo ago
        That is probably what they should have done ..l
        pjmlp 5mo ago
        Python 2 to 3 mess is exactly why all languages think twice about breaking backwards compatibility.

bayindirh 5mo ago

I personally find the lack of native package management in C++ as a blessing. Go, Python, Rust has it, and this always causes pulling in infinite number of packages for any trivial operation. sudo-rs was pulling in 1M+ LOC as its dependency chain at one point. I believe they removed the biggest offenders, but I didn't check it recently.

nnevatie 5mo ago
That's one way to look at it, certainly. There are several OK options in that space, e.g. Conan (2) and vcpkg.

Davidbrcz 5mo ago

No it's not. The language keeps growing, with - new features overlapping old features from previous standards without replacing them or deprecating them (function::copyable_function vs std::function, std::less<> key for transparent lookup in maps) - new features not usable by the layman (coroutines ...) - Cryptic syntax (reflection...) - Stuff you are told not to use because of performance reason and that cant be fixed because of ABI (regex) - Compile errors that are 1km long (no, concepts are not helping here, the 'nicer' message is still buried into a hot pile of template instantiation callstack).

bayindirh 5mo ago
I wonder how many programming languages would be able to devoid of all or some of these problems when they are 40 years old. It's easy to compare new and old languages, and saying older languages are wrinkly. Let's see how other shiny programming languages look like when they are 40 years old.
- Davidbrcz 5mo ago
  Python, Java, Lua, Ruby are ~30 years old, Ada being as old as C++. Sure, none is perfect and they have cruft and warts, but they are not such a mess as C++ is.
- bregma 5mo ago
  There are two kinds of programming languages: the kind everyone complains about and the kind nobody uses.
pjmlp 5mo ago
So a bit like Python or any other language of similar age.
- whstl 5mo ago
  Working occasionally with modern Python helped me love and respect C++ even more.
- bregma 5mo ago
  Python3 is what, 15 years old?
  - pjmlp 5mo ago
    I start counting from Python 1.
    - unclad5968 5mo ago
      Well if c++ had the liberty of scrapping the language twice in the last 30 years I'm sure it would look better too.
      - SJC_Hacker 5mo ago
        That is probably what they should have done ..l
      - pjmlp 5mo ago
        Python 2 to 3 mess is exactly why all languages think twice about breaking backwards compatibility.