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Don't mix the two together. C is great for systems and some application programming, C++ is rubbish. There was one brief stretch in history around 1994-1998 wh

Don't mix the two together. C is great for systems and some application programming, C++ is rubbish. There was one brief stretch in history around 1994-1998 where C++ was the best choice for application level programming. And even then only a very narrow type of app programming. Before that brief timeframe and since then it has been a poor choice for every single type of programming. There are better choices in all cases. It has no niche anymore where it is the best fit, not anywhere.

pjmlp 12y ago
C++ lets me write safe code, C on the other hand....
- jayvanguard 12y ago
  What OS are you running this on?
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    On Windows, where C is considered legacy and C++ is allowed on the kernel.
  - CountSessine 12y ago
    Does it matter? std::string is safer than the dog's breakfast that is strcpy/strncpy/lstrncpy/strncpy_s/mempcpy on any platform. And static_cast<myclass> beats (void*) everywhere - Linux, Windows, OSX, Android...
CountSessine 12y ago
Before that brief timeframe and since then it has been a poor choice for every single type of programming. There are better choices in all cases. For memory-sensitive applications where time-amortization hurts (and this turns out to be pretty much every application that anyone wants to run on their local computer), C++ is still king and is still the best choice for the job. Everyone hates C++, and yet every desktop application in widespread use is built with it. I wonder why? Is it really just inertia? Java, C# - programmers are stuck with a runtime that literally consumes 10x ram as equivalent C++ software. Do you like switching applications on your Android phone and having every other process pushed out of memory? I didn't think so. And while both environments are now offering ahead-of-time compilation, the CLR/JVM runtimes are still much larger than what C++ consumes and you give up the only chance of matching C++'s runtime CPU performance (harvesting runtime profiling to inform the JIT). Golang - a huge step in the right direction, this will probably end C++ use on servers and hosts eventually. It still can't match C++'s runtime performance, but who cares in a host environment. Still, garbage collection makes it unsuitable for local applications where users notice micro-pauses due to garbage collection. Nothing is worse than going into alpha with 10 P0 bugs complaining about 'micro-pauses' and finding out it's because of something you can't change in the runtime. D - truly a better C++ than C++. But no one uses it. Rust - our best hope so far, but the compiler and standard library aren't there yet. You still can't program a web server, for example, without manually handling unsafe objects. Even then its going to be years before there are libraries available that are of similar quality to things like Qt. How do make a GUI application in Rust in 2015? C - I hope you like (void*) and all of the fun runtime bugs that introduces. But seriously - "There are better choices in all cases"? Like what?
- jayvanguard 12y ago
  > Everyone hates C++, and yet every desktop application in widespread use is built with it. I wonder why? Is it really just inertia? First off, that is incorrect. You underestimate the number of VB, C#, and other apps, not to mention OSX based apps. Most business apps are either in Java on the backend or if they aren't web based they are in proprietary languages and frameworks that likely use a mix of C and C++ at the core. They are mostly shit nowadays though which is why everyone is re-writing them in the Cloud. They're unmaintainable. But yes there are a lot of high visibility popular desktop apps in C++ and yes, it is just inertia. When were all of those desktop apps you're thinking of first built (or came of age)? The early 90s! Microsoft Office, the Adobe suite, Visio (bought out by Microsoft), desktop databases, etc. That was the age of the desktop and briefly, C++ was the best choice. I'll grant you a few very small niches still exist and they are in the desktop domain e.g. web browsers and very complex image editors. But how many people are writing browsers? And simpler image editors are better off being mostly in Objective-C or C# (minus some core libraries which are best off in C).
  - api 12y ago
    The "desktop" market is considerably larger than you think it is. It includes a vast array of professional apps for things like CAD/CAM, SPICE, numeric simulation and analysis, graphics and "real" word processing, management of large data sets, industrial control software, heavy clients for complex remote control applications, typesetting, etc. along with the standard web and software engineering use cases. These are not "legacy" apps. They are huge cutting-edge professional suites that drive massive chunks of the economy and contain some of the most complex and challenging computer code ever written. We're talking about stuff like Monte Carlo analysis and genetic algorithm generation of physical machines, simulation of massive electronic circuits, etc... some of these things are the closest thing software engineering has to modern wonders of the world. Go try re-implementing SolidWorks in JavaScript as a client/server app or for Android or iOS and then tell me desktop is dead. Then there's the whole issue of security, privacy, and data ownership. Cloud demands a lot of trust in the provider, and mobile treats user data with something near contempt (apps "own" their files, etc.). There is absolutely no way I am writing a novel or a Ph.D thesis in the cloud or on a mobile device. I'm doing it on a machine I control with a backup system I control where an app being pulled from an app store or a cloud provider experiencing a hack/failure won't obliterate my two years of work. Granted that such things can be written now in languages other than C++, and sometimes can even be shipped in those languages without torturing the user with secondary runtime installs and other insults. But C++ still really rules here. You write it, you build it, and you ship it. Bloat is fairly minimal. Even if you use Qt the bloat is still a lot less than Jabba.
aurelius 12y ago
1994-1998 was a bad time for C++. Stepanov had just come along with the STL idea, and there were various competing implementations of it. And I don't think I need to say anything more about the travesty of MFC other than to acknowledge its mere existence. C++14 (the latest standard) is a far better language than C++ in the '90s, and it really does beat C when it comes to abstraction capabilities, type safety, and standard library functionality. C++11 also defined a standardized memory model which is extremely useful for writing multithreaded code. Yes, C++ is not perfect -- the C++ standard library lacks a lot of functionality found in the libraries of other languages; there is a lot of complexity in the language that one must master to really "know" C++; the language itself has dark corners and disappointments; and so on. No language is perfect, and every language permits bad code. I've been working with C++ full-time for the past three years. I didn't know much about the language before then (I was a "C 43var!" guy), but had heard all the horror stories about it. Now, I'm convinced that it's probably the best general purpose programming language available to date. It combines the full power of the machine with very expressive abstraction capabilities. Having seen what can be done with C++, I decided to study harder and try to master it. I think this last point is ultimately what puts people off, and leads to a lot of FUD about C++ -- it takes hard work to master the language and the tools to work with it. Nobody really wants to do that, not when there are seemingly viable, and easier, alternatives. Instead, people are more willing to invest huge amounts of effort and money to try to scale up those alternatives if it means they can avoid the complexity of a language like C++. That's fine, I guess, we all have to make the appropriate engineering trade-offs, it's just unfortunate that many people fall into extremism about it in order to justify their attempt to simplify the reality of computing (which is actually considerably complex).
loqi 12y ago
> C is great for systems and some application programming, C++ is rubbish This is a bizarre claim. C++ has its problems, but the fact that it allows zero-overhead abstractions over common low-level boilerplate is a seriously non-trivial advantage over C in most areas where C is otherwise a good fit. What compelling advantage does C retain over C++? Faster compiles and being easier to learn are nice and all, but hardly slam-dunks.

pjmlp 12y ago

C++ lets me write safe code, C on the other hand....

jayvanguard 12y ago
What OS are you running this on?
- pjmlp 12y ago
  On Windows, where C is considered legacy and C++ is allowed on the kernel.
- CountSessine 12y ago
  Does it matter? std::string is safer than the dog's breakfast that is strcpy/strncpy/lstrncpy/strncpy_s/mempcpy on any platform. And static_cast<myclass> beats (void*) everywhere - Linux, Windows, OSX, Android...

CountSessine 12y ago

Before that brief timeframe and since then it has been a poor choice for every single type of programming. There are better choices in all cases. For memory-sensitive applications where time-amortization hurts (and this turns out to be pretty much every application that anyone wants to run on their local computer), C++ is still king and is still the best choice for the job. Everyone hates C++, and yet every desktop application in widespread use is built with it. I wonder why? Is it really just inertia? Java, C# - programmers are stuck with a runtime that literally consumes 10x ram as equivalent C++ software. Do you like switching applications on your Android phone and having every other process pushed out of memory? I didn't think so. And while both environments are now offering ahead-of-time compilation, the CLR/JVM runtimes are still much larger than what C++ consumes and you give up the only chance of matching C++'s runtime CPU performance (harvesting runtime profiling to inform the JIT). Golang - a huge step in the right direction, this will probably end C++ use on servers and hosts eventually. It still can't match C++'s runtime performance, but who cares in a host environment. Still, garbage collection makes it unsuitable for local applications where users notice micro-pauses due to garbage collection. Nothing is worse than going into alpha with 10 P0 bugs complaining about 'micro-pauses' and finding out it's because of something you can't change in the runtime. D - truly a better C++ than C++. But no one uses it. Rust - our best hope so far, but the compiler and standard library aren't there yet. You still can't program a web server, for example, without manually handling unsafe objects. Even then its going to be years before there are libraries available that are of similar quality to things like Qt. How do make a GUI application in Rust in 2015? C - I hope you like (void*) and all of the fun runtime bugs that introduces. But seriously - "There are better choices in all cases"? Like what?

jayvanguard 12y ago
> Everyone hates C++, and yet every desktop application in widespread use is built with it. I wonder why? Is it really just inertia? First off, that is incorrect. You underestimate the number of VB, C#, and other apps, not to mention OSX based apps. Most business apps are either in Java on the backend or if they aren't web based they are in proprietary languages and frameworks that likely use a mix of C and C++ at the core. They are mostly shit nowadays though which is why everyone is re-writing them in the Cloud. They're unmaintainable. But yes there are a lot of high visibility popular desktop apps in C++ and yes, it is just inertia. When were all of those desktop apps you're thinking of first built (or came of age)? The early 90s! Microsoft Office, the Adobe suite, Visio (bought out by Microsoft), desktop databases, etc. That was the age of the desktop and briefly, C++ was the best choice. I'll grant you a few very small niches still exist and they are in the desktop domain e.g. web browsers and very complex image editors. But how many people are writing browsers? And simpler image editors are better off being mostly in Objective-C or C# (minus some core libraries which are best off in C).
- api 12y ago
  The "desktop" market is considerably larger than you think it is. It includes a vast array of professional apps for things like CAD/CAM, SPICE, numeric simulation and analysis, graphics and "real" word processing, management of large data sets, industrial control software, heavy clients for complex remote control applications, typesetting, etc. along with the standard web and software engineering use cases. These are not "legacy" apps. They are huge cutting-edge professional suites that drive massive chunks of the economy and contain some of the most complex and challenging computer code ever written. We're talking about stuff like Monte Carlo analysis and genetic algorithm generation of physical machines, simulation of massive electronic circuits, etc... some of these things are the closest thing software engineering has to modern wonders of the world. Go try re-implementing SolidWorks in JavaScript as a client/server app or for Android or iOS and then tell me desktop is dead. Then there's the whole issue of security, privacy, and data ownership. Cloud demands a lot of trust in the provider, and mobile treats user data with something near contempt (apps "own" their files, etc.). There is absolutely no way I am writing a novel or a Ph.D thesis in the cloud or on a mobile device. I'm doing it on a machine I control with a backup system I control where an app being pulled from an app store or a cloud provider experiencing a hack/failure won't obliterate my two years of work. Granted that such things can be written now in languages other than C++, and sometimes can even be shipped in those languages without torturing the user with secondary runtime installs and other insults. But C++ still really rules here. You write it, you build it, and you ship it. Bloat is fairly minimal. Even if you use Qt the bloat is still a lot less than Jabba.

aurelius 12y ago

1994-1998 was a bad time for C++. Stepanov had just come along with the STL idea, and there were various competing implementations of it. And I don't think I need to say anything more about the travesty of MFC other than to acknowledge its mere existence. C++14 (the latest standard) is a far better language than C++ in the '90s, and it really does beat C when it comes to abstraction capabilities, type safety, and standard library functionality. C++11 also defined a standardized memory model which is extremely useful for writing multithreaded code. Yes, C++ is not perfect -- the C++ standard library lacks a lot of functionality found in the libraries of other languages; there is a lot of complexity in the language that one must master to really "know" C++; the language itself has dark corners and disappointments; and so on. No language is perfect, and every language permits bad code. I've been working with C++ full-time for the past three years. I didn't know much about the language before then (I was a "C 43var!" guy), but had heard all the horror stories about it. Now, I'm convinced that it's probably the best general purpose programming language available to date. It combines the full power of the machine with very expressive abstraction capabilities. Having seen what can be done with C++, I decided to study harder and try to master it. I think this last point is ultimately what puts people off, and leads to a lot of FUD about C++ -- it takes hard work to master the language and the tools to work with it. Nobody really wants to do that, not when there are seemingly viable, and easier, alternatives. Instead, people are more willing to invest huge amounts of effort and money to try to scale up those alternatives if it means they can avoid the complexity of a language like C++. That's fine, I guess, we all have to make the appropriate engineering trade-offs, it's just unfortunate that many people fall into extremism about it in order to justify their attempt to simplify the reality of computing (which is actually considerably complex).

loqi 12y ago

> C is great for systems and some application programming, C++ is rubbish This is a bizarre claim. C++ has its problems, but the fact that it allows zero-overhead abstractions over common low-level boilerplate is a seriously non-trivial advantage over C in most areas where C is otherwise a good fit. What compelling advantage does C retain over C++? Faster compiles and being easier to learn are nice and all, but hardly slam-dunks.