4 ms·

Shame you're downvoted, because you're pretty much right. Don't get me wrong, correct code can very well be written in C/C++. It's just 95% of the programmers u

by vardump 12y ago

Shame you're downvoted, because you're pretty much right. Don't get me wrong, correct code can very well be written in C/C++. It's just 95% of the programmers using those languages are not very skilled. The programs tend to be wrong and fragile. In C++, most of this fragility derives from its C-roots. C/C++ is also a poor match to today's CPUs. It's very slow compared to what the hardware is capable of. Compare for example with Intel ispc (https://ispc.github.io/ https://ispc.github.io/). It gives some idea how much performance we're currently missing. When C was young, memory latency was typically 1 or 2 clock cycles. There was no pipelining, at most a simple state machine that would finish in a few clock cycles. A branch didn't cost much. A few cycles at most. Neither did a pointer reference. Random access was almost as fast as sequential access. Today's CPUs have memory latency of 150-300 clock cycles. A modern CPU core can typically retire 1-4 instructions per clock cycle. A single instruction takes typically about 16 clock cycles from decoding until retire. So CPUs have to often execute blind and just guess where the execution flow will go. Branches modify this flow. CPUs simply guess the flow, branch predict. When they're wrong, they just have to invalidate currently executing instructions and start again. Branches are something to avoid. Especially unpredictable ones. Function pointers are branches. Even though they can be predicted, they often just fall out of the branch predictor cache. We need something that can minimize the costs modern CPUs are bad at. C/C++ is very branchy and uses slow function pointers often (vtable, switch jump tables, etc). The problem is, there's more variation among CPUs than ever before, even within same instruction set architecture. For x86, not only the costs for instructions are wildly different, but the instruction set support is fragmented. C/C++ is not the last word. Unsafe and way too slow compared to what current hardware is capable of. The problem is, the language that is safer and a good match just does not exist yet. Some safety can be sacrificed for greater speed, but it should be situational choice by the programmer, not the only way or even default. C/C++ is what I do at my day job.

fleitz 12y ago
>> It's just 95% of the programmers using those languages are not very skilled. High level languages just make it easier for crappy programmers to approximate a working solution.
- ConceptJunkie 12y ago
  This is true for C++ and doubly true for Java. In 20 years, I don't think I've ever seen a commercial third-party C++ library that I thought was competently designed and implemented. I was about to offer the exception of mysql++, but then I remembered it's an open-source library so it wouldn't count as commercial. C++ seems to breed a lot of crappy but marginally useful code. I haven't done much Java, and I don't think it's a bad language, I've never seen a Java development environment that I would even wish on my enemies. Java seems to breed bloated over-engineered but under-flexible designs that require the programmer to do way too much of the kind of stuff that we invented computers to do for us in the first place.
tedunangst 12y ago
Neither of you are really answering the question. You still haven't proposed a language is better. When the half dozen browsers that represent about 99.9% of the browswer market all use C++, perhaps the explanation is not "They're all wrong."
- vardump 12y ago
  > When the half dozen browsers that represent about 99.9% of the browswer market all use C++, perhaps the explanation is not "They're all wrong." I didn't say they're wrong by any means! C++ is the horse and cart. Performance wise, the programming language automobile doesn't exist yet. Of course one should and must use what is currently available! The best language for writing a web browser does not exist yet. Or for writing other similarly complicated applications with performance requirements. So, yes, C++ is probably the best language for writing a web browser right now. The cleanest dirty shirt. Certainly not the safest, but out of high level languages it has the best performance. It has large enough work force, important if you're building a large project. C/C++ interfaces with current operating systems natively. And a lot of other considerations make it a sensible choice. But C/C++ is rather far from what a language could be. It's very bug prone. Overcomplicated. Hard to maintain. And it is slow. Not compared to other languages, but to CPU performance potential. I can write very fast software in C++ -- if I effectively fall back to assembler or at least compiler intrinsics. In other words, by being a human compiler.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Around 20 years ago we had quite a few systems programming languages to choose from. The widespread of UNIX into the industry, killed the other languages because they weren't the UNIX system programming language and other system vendors weren't able to fight against UNIX based Workstations. So like JavaScript in the browser, C eventually killed the alternatives in the workstation market. C++ was able to gain industry acceptance because C++ compiler vendors were actually C compiler vendors bundling C++ in their products, since C++ came from AT&T as well. Additionally, the computers started to be fast enough for mainstream VM based systems. The business application developers moved along to VM based languages, while the system programmers focused on the languages that were supported by larger OS vendors, C and C++. All the compiler vendors selling system programming languages compilers that didn't enjoy first class treatment on a mainstream OS, either closed down or changed business. So 20 years later, C and C++ became the only alternatives for systems programming, unless one wants to play with dead languages. With Ada being used in projects that required it, or for software scenarios where human life are at risk like aviation, train control systems, medical devices and so on. And now we are getting beaten every day in security exploits due to daggling pointers and out of bounds errors.
spinlock 12y ago
what languages are more appropriate for today's hardware? The majority of my experience in C (Linux) is on embedded hardware (and quite a few years ago). I've never run into wasted cycles before but that setup is really different from a modern cpu on a desktop.

by vardump 12y ago

fleitz 12y ago

>> It's just 95% of the programmers using those languages are not very skilled. High level languages just make it easier for crappy programmers to approximate a working solution.

ConceptJunkie 12y ago
This is true for C++ and doubly true for Java. In 20 years, I don't think I've ever seen a commercial third-party C++ library that I thought was competently designed and implemented. I was about to offer the exception of mysql++, but then I remembered it's an open-source library so it wouldn't count as commercial. C++ seems to breed a lot of crappy but marginally useful code. I haven't done much Java, and I don't think it's a bad language, I've never seen a Java development environment that I would even wish on my enemies. Java seems to breed bloated over-engineered but under-flexible designs that require the programmer to do way too much of the kind of stuff that we invented computers to do for us in the first place.

tedunangst 12y ago

Neither of you are really answering the question. You still haven't proposed a language is better. When the half dozen browsers that represent about 99.9% of the browswer market all use C++, perhaps the explanation is not "They're all wrong."

vardump 12y ago
> When the half dozen browsers that represent about 99.9% of the browswer market all use C++, perhaps the explanation is not "They're all wrong." I didn't say they're wrong by any means! C++ is the horse and cart. Performance wise, the programming language automobile doesn't exist yet. Of course one should and must use what is currently available! The best language for writing a web browser does not exist yet. Or for writing other similarly complicated applications with performance requirements. So, yes, C++ is probably the best language for writing a web browser right now. The cleanest dirty shirt. Certainly not the safest, but out of high level languages it has the best performance. It has large enough work force, important if you're building a large project. C/C++ interfaces with current operating systems natively. And a lot of other considerations make it a sensible choice. But C/C++ is rather far from what a language could be. It's very bug prone. Overcomplicated. Hard to maintain. And it is slow. Not compared to other languages, but to CPU performance potential. I can write very fast software in C++ -- if I effectively fall back to assembler or at least compiler intrinsics. In other words, by being a human compiler.
pjmlp 12y ago
Around 20 years ago we had quite a few systems programming languages to choose from. The widespread of UNIX into the industry, killed the other languages because they weren't the UNIX system programming language and other system vendors weren't able to fight against UNIX based Workstations. So like JavaScript in the browser, C eventually killed the alternatives in the workstation market. C++ was able to gain industry acceptance because C++ compiler vendors were actually C compiler vendors bundling C++ in their products, since C++ came from AT&T as well. Additionally, the computers started to be fast enough for mainstream VM based systems. The business application developers moved along to VM based languages, while the system programmers focused on the languages that were supported by larger OS vendors, C and C++. All the compiler vendors selling system programming languages compilers that didn't enjoy first class treatment on a mainstream OS, either closed down or changed business. So 20 years later, C and C++ became the only alternatives for systems programming, unless one wants to play with dead languages. With Ada being used in projects that required it, or for software scenarios where human life are at risk like aviation, train control systems, medical devices and so on. And now we are getting beaten every day in security exploits due to daggling pointers and out of bounds errors.

spinlock 12y ago

what languages are more appropriate for today's hardware? The majority of my experience in C (Linux) is on embedded hardware (and quite a few years ago). I've never run into wasted cycles before but that setup is really different from a modern cpu on a desktop.