OSNews

Yeah. Makes me nervous about the wth is going on with template code that compiles but isn't 100% correct. And how many crashes all that ridiculous complexity has caused.

The more fun ones are template errors. Two pages of output and you still have no idea what you did wrong.

Well, you're coding in C++, yes? There's where you went wrong lol

Write some moderately complex code using Boost.Lambda, then make a typo. Just one, in an innocuous a place as you can find. G++ will just barf all over your shoes, and you won't be able to get the smell out for a week.

The complete illegibility of template expansion errors has killed any enthusiasm I had for Boost, or "modern C++" in general. Its not really the fault of the compilers, C++ templates are just a fundamentally crappy feature from an ease-of-use and ease-of-implementation point of view.

Edited 2007-03-09 21:36

I definitely have found Java to give more specific errors when there are compile problems - I think it is due to the degree of reflection in the language itself. I think that makes it an easier job for the compiler to spot errors.

I actually like C++ templates and Boost quite a lot. It's just the compiler errors that suck.

It's much easier to find the bug by inspecting the code than reading the error.