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So I used to agree with you, but I've done extensive performance critical C development at Facebook (memcached, a new thing we are about to talk about) and I ha

So I used to agree with you, but I've done extensive performance critical C development at Facebook (memcached, a new thing we are about to talk about) and I have also done extensive performance critical c++11 development (our layer 7 load balancer for http) and I'd have to say that c++11 is the far superior option if you really, truly understand what the compiler is doing to your code (a huge caveat). Unique_ptrs are a total game changer, and the ability to use closures and lambdas when you want to set a callback function instead of a function pointer with a context pointer you have to cast and decode is absolutely huge for readability. maybe we aren't getting every last bit of performance out of it that we could with C, but it works at our pretty ridiculous scale, so I think C might have been a premature optimization for us.

Meai 14y ago
First you are saying c++11 is the far superior option (with that one caveat) and in the last sentence you imply that C would still be faster. Can you clarify? I'll add my opinion too: I think all the readability you can get out of c++, will be wasted in layers upon layers of object oriented design and C compiles much faster, so there is that.
- alexgartrell 14y ago
  C++11 is the superior option because it is easier to write correct code with it, plain and simple. And we aren't talking about orders of magnitude difference in throughput or latency, we're talking about a slight increase in CPU idle. And layers upon layers of object oriented crap is also a problem in C (I've seen it). At the end of the day I've just been burned more by the complexities of building large things in C (particularly when people do reference counting in C) than I have been by the complexity of c++ in general.
gngeal 14y ago
"Unique_ptrs are a total game changer" You meant that a linear type system is a total game changes. Unique_ptrs are an ugly hack to emulate a linear type system in an inadequate language.

Meai 14y ago

First you are saying c++11 is the far superior option (with that one caveat) and in the last sentence you imply that C would still be faster. Can you clarify? I'll add my opinion too: I think all the readability you can get out of c++, will be wasted in layers upon layers of object oriented design and C compiles much faster, so there is that.

alexgartrell 14y ago
C++11 is the superior option because it is easier to write correct code with it, plain and simple. And we aren't talking about orders of magnitude difference in throughput or latency, we're talking about a slight increase in CPU idle. And layers upon layers of object oriented crap is also a problem in C (I've seen it). At the end of the day I've just been burned more by the complexities of building large things in C (particularly when people do reference counting in C) than I have been by the complexity of c++ in general.

gngeal 14y ago

"Unique_ptrs are a total game changer" You meant that a linear type system is a total game changes. Unique_ptrs are an ugly hack to emulate a linear type system in an inadequate language.