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I think the actual argument was "C/C++ is not great, but others are worse". :) Pretty much all languages have handy OS API calls, usually a lot more portable t

by CCs 13y ago

I think the actual argument was "C/C++ is not great, but others are worse". :) Pretty much all languages have handy OS API calls, usually a lot more portable than C/C++ - so that's not a compelling reason. Yet somehow a lot of new code is still written in C/C++: Redis, Memcached, Nginx, MongoDB, Android, Chrome etc

betterunix 13y ago
I am speaking from experience here. The only language I have used where this does not apply is F#, and only if you count .NET support. I love CL, I never want to go back to C or C++, but the most annoying aspect is the lack of good system call support. Sure SBCL has a posix compatibility layer, but anything beyond basic system calls becomes a drag. In the worst case you wind up having to write a C function to wrap a system call just to expose an easier-to-use interface for the FFI. It is a complete mess, and it becomes a maintenance nightmare.