3 ms·

Where is my C++ replacement?

25 points by AndrewDucker 12y ago

Gonzih 12y ago
Haskell? :)
- ungerik 12y ago
  Go was developed to replace C++
  - tdsamardzhiev 12y ago
    ... for a few specific tasks.
    - mitchty 12y ago
      That and the runtime and garbage collector mean its unlikely to ever replace c++. Maybe for a few specific tasks, but yeah Go is not a c++ replacement.
- tormeh 12y ago
  Did you read the article?
gilgoomesh 12y ago
I you feel like OOP and template metaprogramming are being publicly derided, then you're welcome to use plain C. It's still going strong after 40 years and will probably still be around in another 40. I'm joking a little, maybe, but the point is that languages don't need to change in a hurry. People still start new projects in Fortran and Lisp; there are natural islands in the North Sea newer than these languages. I think it's easy to feel like C++ is due for replacement when it isn't really. Yes, it's easy to be jealous about all the new things going on in other languages but that's in languages that sacrifice performance. If you're using C++ correctly, you're in a performance critical environment (either low memory, fast speed or steady speed). Or you have a lot of integration with C/C++. From this position, the only place you can currently go is from C++ down to C. Honestly, there just isn't an apples-for-apples replacement for C++ at the moment. Rust is the only serious effort out there at minimum/zero overhead programming but it's 6 months away from 1.0, longer still before people get used to large scale design patterns that work well in the language and type system and much longer before it approaches the level of third-party library support that C++ has. Yes, Boost needs a lot more work. C++ has traditionally had a woefully inadequate platform independent standard library, relying too heavily on Win32 or Qt or Carbon for things that should have been platform independent. But frankly, C++ is doing okay. It has never been the easiest of languages to use but it hasn't gotten any worse. It's actually gotten better with C++11 and C++14 and with clang on the scene and libc++ providing a libstdc++ alternative and Microsoft finally trying to reach standards compliance.
pornel 12y ago
I think Rust really has a chance replacing C++. To me it's in the sweet spot between C and C++: it fixes all the tedious little things in C, but still feels like a "small" language (everything is a combination of struct/enum/function) and still is very low-level. It has no GC and zero overhead like C++. You control stack vs heap allocations and memory layout. With `unsafe` blocks it allows all kinds of crazy optimisations when you need them. When you compile with link-time optimizations most of Rust stdlib is discarded so you can have reasonably small executables. Rust doesn't rely on a big runtime and has first-class C interoperability, so you can use it for plugins/libraries with C API too. And since Rust is pretty similar to Swift (except without reference counting and with saner array references ;) I expect LLVM will soon be optimized for that kind of language, so Rust's performance will be >= C++.

25 points by AndrewDucker 12y ago

Gonzih 12y ago

Haskell? :)

ungerik 12y ago
Go was developed to replace C++
- tdsamardzhiev 12y ago
  ... for a few specific tasks.
  - mitchty 12y ago
    That and the runtime and garbage collector mean its unlikely to ever replace c++. Maybe for a few specific tasks, but yeah Go is not a c++ replacement.
tormeh 12y ago
Did you read the article?

gilgoomesh 12y ago

I you feel like OOP and template metaprogramming are being publicly derided, then you're welcome to use plain C. It's still going strong after 40 years and will probably still be around in another 40. I'm joking a little, maybe, but the point is that languages don't need to change in a hurry. People still start new projects in Fortran and Lisp; there are natural islands in the North Sea newer than these languages. I think it's easy to feel like C++ is due for replacement when it isn't really. Yes, it's easy to be jealous about all the new things going on in other languages but that's in languages that sacrifice performance. If you're using C++ correctly, you're in a performance critical environment (either low memory, fast speed or steady speed). Or you have a lot of integration with C/C++. From this position, the only place you can currently go is from C++ down to C. Honestly, there just isn't an apples-for-apples replacement for C++ at the moment. Rust is the only serious effort out there at minimum/zero overhead programming but it's 6 months away from 1.0, longer still before people get used to large scale design patterns that work well in the language and type system and much longer before it approaches the level of third-party library support that C++ has. Yes, Boost needs a lot more work. C++ has traditionally had a woefully inadequate platform independent standard library, relying too heavily on Win32 or Qt or Carbon for things that should have been platform independent. But frankly, C++ is doing okay. It has never been the easiest of languages to use but it hasn't gotten any worse. It's actually gotten better with C++11 and C++14 and with clang on the scene and libc++ providing a libstdc++ alternative and Microsoft finally trying to reach standards compliance.

pornel 12y ago

I think Rust really has a chance replacing C++. To me it's in the sweet spot between C and C++: it fixes all the tedious little things in C, but still feels like a "small" language (everything is a combination of struct/enum/function) and still is very low-level. It has no GC and zero overhead like C++. You control stack vs heap allocations and memory layout. With `unsafe` blocks it allows all kinds of crazy optimisations when you need them. When you compile with link-time optimizations most of Rust stdlib is discarded so you can have reasonably small executables. Rust doesn't rely on a big runtime and has first-class C interoperability, so you can use it for plugins/libraries with C API too. And since Rust is pretty similar to Swift (except without reference counting and with saner array references ;) I expect LLVM will soon be optimized for that kind of language, so Rust's performance will be >= C++.