Star C++: The Ugly Useful Programming Language
Linked by David Adams on Sat 11th Oct 2008 16:48 UTC, submitted by IndigoJo
General Development Eric Raymond is working on an essay, putatively titled "Why C++ Is Not My Favorite Programming Language". In his announcement, he calls it "an overcomplexity generator", "bloated, obfuscated, unwieldy, rigid, and brittle", and alleges that these characteristics appear in C++ applications also. I contend that many of the complaints about C++ are petty or are aimed at specific libraries or poor documentation and that many of the features commonly regarded as unnecessary (and excluded from intended replacements) are, in fact, highly useful. C++: the Ugly Useful Programming Language
E-mail Print r 3   101 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/fq5
Thread beginning with comment 333306
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE: Before you get rid of C++ ....
by benhonghu on Sat 11th Oct 2008 17:12 UTC in reply to "Before you get rid of C++ ...."
benhonghu
Member since:
2008-08-24

Before you get rid of C++, how about developing a language (with appropriate libraries) to do everything C++ does, including the ability to code fast, tight, native applications that can run on multiple platforms, and which will allow you to code close to the metal if you would like.

And most importantly, must be 99% C-compatible.

My experience is, for a small application that doesn't do anything the base class library doesn't provide, C# is indeed much faster to code. But as the code complexity grows and you need access to some C API then C# really is a hassle.

Good C++ libraries (like boost, Qt, OpenSceneGraph, etc) does a lot to smooth out the development experience.

Edited 2008-10-11 17:26 UTC

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 5

Accident Member since:
2005-07-29

Well D comes pretty close to what he's looking for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_programming

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 5

wanker90210 Member since:
2007-10-26

Personally I have high hopes for Vala:
http://live.gnome.org/Vala

That's the first project in years that has made me really excited.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 6

Read more of this thread... >
aesiamun Member since:
2005-06-29

Well, we have objective-c...

It is C, and then smalltalk came in and started influencing it to be object oriented.

"Come on kid, everyone's doing it!"

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2

luzr Member since:
2005-11-20

Objective-C does not have too much common with C++ design goals.

Objective-C just adds a bit of smalltalk syntax over C. Whereas C++ extends C syntax while keeping low-level efficiency.

BTW, note that there is Objective-C++ too ;)

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 1

Read more of this thread... >