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There are good arguments against C++, but they resume to its extreme complexity and lack of extra safety compared to C. Both are fair points and why I avoid it.

by lucian1900 13y ago

Ragnarork 13y ago
What do you mean by "Lack of extra safety compared to C"? I'd have imagined the exact opposite, but maybe I'm missing something there.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  C++ is way safer than C thanks to stronger type checking and what you can achieve via library types like STL collections. However the C unsafety is still present due to the compatibility compromises with C in C++'s design. With teams it is very hard to control what each developer makes use of, even with static analysis.
  - Ragnarork 13y ago
    That was kind of my point. I really think that if anything, C++ cannot be as unsafe as C. You can do crap in C++ just as well as you can do in C, but at least C++ gives you tools to do things way more safely IMO.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      Yes, that is one reason why I never liked C, but do enjoy C++ for personal projects or when everyone on the team is quite comfortable with it. For the other type of enterprise projects I rather use languages that follow Algol linage of memory safety.
lholden 13y ago
I consider modern C++ to be a lot safer than C. Between RAII, copy, and move schematics the pointer use has gone down quite a bit. When you do use pointers, we finally have a real null pointer literal now. (I believe the latest C spec has also received this.) C++ is certainly crufty. The language has been around for a long time and many features in the specification exist to support legacy code. This is a side effect of being a living language with a huge user base. Modern C++ tends to be fairly clean and reasonably easy to work in. Herb Sutter has some great talks and blog articles around the topic. For example: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-661 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-661
- azth 13y ago
  I think it is somewhat telling that even gcc switched to C++.

There are good arguments against C++, but they resume to its extreme complexity and lack of extra safety compared to C. Both are fair points and why I avoid it.

Ragnarork 13y ago

What do you mean by "Lack of extra safety compared to C"? I'd have imagined the exact opposite, but maybe I'm missing something there.

pjmlp 13y ago
C++ is way safer than C thanks to stronger type checking and what you can achieve via library types like STL collections. However the C unsafety is still present due to the compatibility compromises with C in C++'s design. With teams it is very hard to control what each developer makes use of, even with static analysis.
- Ragnarork 13y ago
  That was kind of my point. I really think that if anything, C++ cannot be as unsafe as C. You can do crap in C++ just as well as you can do in C, but at least C++ gives you tools to do things way more safely IMO.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Yes, that is one reason why I never liked C, but do enjoy C++ for personal projects or when everyone on the team is quite comfortable with it. For the other type of enterprise projects I rather use languages that follow Algol linage of memory safety.

lholden 13y ago

I consider modern C++ to be a lot safer than C. Between RAII, copy, and move schematics the pointer use has gone down quite a bit. When you do use pointers, we finally have a real null pointer literal now. (I believe the latest C spec has also received this.) C++ is certainly crufty. The language has been around for a long time and many features in the specification exist to support legacy code. This is a side effect of being a living language with a huge user base. Modern C++ tends to be fairly clean and reasonably easy to work in. Herb Sutter has some great talks and blog articles around the topic. For example: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-661 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/2-661

azth 13y ago
I think it is somewhat telling that even gcc switched to C++.