9 ms·

Why not just C++?

by tuczi 7y ago

Why not just C++?

macintux 7y ago
Speaking for myself, I’ve never found C++’s complexity appealing, and it only seems to be getting worse over the last 20 years. As the creator says, it’s not for production use. If I’m doing a side project, I’d give this a serious look.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly with this. You can write high level code in C++, but the cost is a terribly complex language and standard library. In contrast, the C language is fairly simple, except for a few twisty passages (pointer declaration syntax, anyone?). The standard library does leave something to be desired, but that's not that big of a deal given all the third party libraries out there. It would be interesting to compare the same program written in straight C vs C++ vs Cello, both for developer experience issues (clarity, simplicity, etc.) and performance. I'll have to have a look at http://libcello.org/learn/benchmarks http://libcello.org/learn/benchmarks but this does really seem like something I'd like to use on a personal project someday.
  - axilmar 7y ago
    You can't compare C++ and C in complexity in general. Any C program that does the same things as C++ does is bound to be just as complex, and even more so since C lacks many of the C++'s niceties.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > Speaking for myself, I’ve never found C++’s complexity appealing, and it only seems to be getting worse over the last 20 years. True, but that's why we've got Rust these days. (Rust is actually more optimized than C, e.g. it will automatically reshuffle your structs to get rid of excess padding, and reference accesses will automatically take advantage of compiler-checked 'restrict' constraints, thus equalizing performance with e.g. FORTRAN.)
  - oddity 7y ago
    Rust is a compelling alternative to C++ for large scale systems software (browsers, video games, etc) but, as of the last time I checked (~2 months ago) it doesn’t scale down as well as C does, or to as many platforms as C does. A lot of this is that C has an unfair advantage from being well established, but an advantage is an advantage .
    - monocasa 7y ago
      I'd say (as a former RTOS lead) that it scales down as well as C, there just aren't as many backends yet. XTensa, AVR, and 8051 are the notable ones missing.
    - dgellow 7y ago
      > Rust is a compelling alternative to C++ for [...] video games I think it is unlikely to see rust gain much traction in the game dev world. Everything is currently done in C++, and there is low incentives to move to something "safer" or "more secure", because that's not seen as relevant properties by game developers. What matters for game dev is mostly (not listed in a specific order): - raw performances - low latency - as low as an overhead as possible when dealing with GPUs - control over memory management In that context the borrow checker can be an unnecessary constraint, and the safety concern isn't really something that relevant. In the other hand, the rust package manager is really something that is missing in the C++ world, and would be awesome to have for game devs.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    > Rust is actually more optimized than C.... I think what you mean is that current Rust _implementations_ optimize better than current C _implementations_. There's no reason a C99 compiler can't do those optimizations.
    - PeCaN 7y ago
      >There's no reason a C99 compiler can't do those optimizations. No, there actually is, the C standard says structs have to be laid out in memory in the same order they're written and C has much weaker aliasing rules.
- loeg 7y ago
  Sure, but Cello's complexity turns me off for the same reasons as C++'s complexity. The question isn't "why not use C++?" in isolation, but instead, "why would you use Cello over C++?"
deleted 7y ago
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Why not just C++?

by tuczi 7y ago

Why not just C++?

Speaking for myself, I’ve never found C++’s complexity appealing, and it only seems to be getting worse over the last 20 years. As the creator says, it’s not for production use. If I’m doing a side project, I’d give this a serious look.

pmiller2 7y ago
I agree wholeheartedly with this. You can write high level code in C++, but the cost is a terribly complex language and standard library. In contrast, the C language is fairly simple, except for a few twisty passages (pointer declaration syntax, anyone?). The standard library does leave something to be desired, but that's not that big of a deal given all the third party libraries out there. It would be interesting to compare the same program written in straight C vs C++ vs Cello, both for developer experience issues (clarity, simplicity, etc.) and performance. I'll have to have a look at http://libcello.org/learn/benchmarks http://libcello.org/learn/benchmarks but this does really seem like something I'd like to use on a personal project someday.
- axilmar 7y ago
  You can't compare C++ and C in complexity in general. Any C program that does the same things as C++ does is bound to be just as complex, and even more so since C lacks many of the C++'s niceties.
zozbot234 7y ago
> Speaking for myself, I’ve never found C++’s complexity appealing, and it only seems to be getting worse over the last 20 years. True, but that's why we've got Rust these days. (Rust is actually more optimized than C, e.g. it will automatically reshuffle your structs to get rid of excess padding, and reference accesses will automatically take advantage of compiler-checked 'restrict' constraints, thus equalizing performance with e.g. FORTRAN.)
- oddity 7y ago
  Rust is a compelling alternative to C++ for large scale systems software (browsers, video games, etc) but, as of the last time I checked (~2 months ago) it doesn’t scale down as well as C does, or to as many platforms as C does. A lot of this is that C has an unfair advantage from being well established, but an advantage is an advantage .
  - monocasa 7y ago
    I'd say (as a former RTOS lead) that it scales down as well as C, there just aren't as many backends yet. XTensa, AVR, and 8051 are the notable ones missing.
  - dgellow 7y ago
    > Rust is a compelling alternative to C++ for [...] video games I think it is unlikely to see rust gain much traction in the game dev world. Everything is currently done in C++, and there is low incentives to move to something "safer" or "more secure", because that's not seen as relevant properties by game developers. What matters for game dev is mostly (not listed in a specific order): - raw performances - low latency - as low as an overhead as possible when dealing with GPUs - control over memory management In that context the borrow checker can be an unnecessary constraint, and the safety concern isn't really something that relevant. In the other hand, the rust package manager is really something that is missing in the C++ world, and would be awesome to have for game devs.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  > Rust is actually more optimized than C.... I think what you mean is that current Rust _implementations_ optimize better than current C _implementations_. There's no reason a C99 compiler can't do those optimizations.
  - PeCaN 7y ago
    >There's no reason a C99 compiler can't do those optimizations. No, there actually is, the C standard says structs have to be laid out in memory in the same order they're written and C has much weaker aliasing rules.
loeg 7y ago
Sure, but Cello's complexity turns me off for the same reasons as C++'s complexity. The question isn't "why not use C++?" in isolation, but instead, "why would you use Cello over C++?"

deleted 7y ago

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