- cross-posted to:
- cpp@programming.dev
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The inherent problem with this kind of solution is that if you don’t break backwards compatibility, you don’t get rid off all the insecure code.
And if you do break backwards compatibility, there’s not much reason to stick to C++ rather than going for Rust with its established ecosystem…
The big downside is that, for backwards compatibility, the default must still be unsafe code. Ideally this could be toggled with a compiler flag, rather than having to wrap most code in “safe” blocks (like rust, but backwards).
One potential upside that people don’t seem to be discussing is that the safe subset could also be the place to finally start cutting down the bloat of C++. We could encourage most developers to write exclusively in the safe subset, and aim to make that the “much smaller and cleaner language” trying to get out of C++.
Is this going to be re-posted every month?
Anyway, I’ve come to know since then that the proposal was not a part of a damage control campaign, but rather a single person’s attempt at proposing a theoretical real solution. He misguidedly thought that there was actually an interest in some real solutions. There wasn’t, and there isn’t.
The empire are continuing with the strategy of scamming people into believing that they will produce, at some unspecified point, complete magical
mushroomsguidelines and real specified and implemented profiles.The proposal is destined to become perma-vaporware. The dreamy guidelines are going to be perma-WIP, the magical profiles are going to be perma-vapordocs (as in they will never actually exist, not even in theoretical form), and the bureaucracy checks will continue to be cashed.
So not only there was no concrete strike back, it wasn’t even the empire that did it.
I’m a bit skeptical that a borrow checker in C++ can be as powerful as in rust, since C++ doesn’t have lifetime annotations. Without lifetime annotations, you have to do a whole program analysis to get the equivalent checks which isn’t even possible if you’re e.g. loading dynamic libraries, and prohibitively slow otherwise. Without that you can only really do local analysis which is of course good but not that powerful.
Lifetime annotations in the type system is the right call, since it allows library authors to impose invariants related to ownership on their consumers. I doubt C++ will add it to their typesystem though.
Read the proposal: Lifetimes annotations, the rust standard library (incl. basic types like Vec, ARc, …), first class tuples, pattern matching, destructive moves, unsafe, it is all in there.
The proposal is really to bolt on Rust to the side of C++, with all the compatibility problems that brings by necessity.
Ah ok just read the article and not the proposal. I’m surprised that they went that far but as I wrote I think that lifetime annotations are a good idea, hope the C++ people find a way to add them to the language that actually works well, which sounds like an incredibly difficult task.
Gonna need to start calling it C++++ at this point. So much extra shit in the standard library
Honestly, i prefer that over minimal standard libraries where you need dotzens of changing depencies for the simplest stuff.
Nah standard libraries are great but C++ has a lot of… cruft. Maybe don’t plonk a lot of Rust in there despite all the positives
Sure, not saying C++ isn’t cluttered.
I’ve done a bit of C++ coding in my time. The feature list of the language is so long at this point that it is pretty much impossible for anyone new to learn C++ and grok the design decisions anymore. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not to keep adding and extending or whether C++ should sail into the sunset like Fortran and others before it.
The feature list of the language is so long at this point that it is pretty much impossible for anyone new to learn C++ and grok the design decisions anymore.
Even if it is possible, it’s a high bar. The height of that bar matters in bringing new people in.
I have seen decades of would-be “C++ killers” come and go. I think that in the end, it is C++ that kills C++. The language has just become unusably large. And that’s one thing that cannot be fixed by extending the language.
Fortran is still a good language for some purposes I think.
And I feel the same way, C++ tries to solve the problem of having too many features by adding more features.
Don’t get me wrong. There is still a time and a place for Fortran. And this will also likely always be the case for C++. But I’m not sure it is entirely wise to choose it if you’re creating a new project anymore.
C++ innovates often first and adapts it into mainstream. And its kind of a swiss-army knife. You don’t need to use and learn everything, just pick what you need. Unless you need to get into an old existing code base…
Just an idea: The language could be divided into multiple standard levels, where each level has more features and functionality. It would be essentially a “restricted”, “standard” and “full” version of the language, where full is basically what it is now and the others are constrained versions with less functionality (no multiple inheritance and what not rules). But at this point, if you don’t use the language in its full, why bother with it at all? Just thinking a bit…
You don’t need to use and learn everything, just pick what you need.
I used to think the same, but now I think you should at least skim through everything. Reason being otherwise you may reinvent the wheel a lot, and there are many use-cases where you really don’t want to do that (but C++ makes it so easy, I was constantly tempted to just do what I want and not look for it being already available)
This gets even more complex if you’re using a toolkit of some sort. C++ has a batteries-included way of doing something, then STL has another, and Qt yet another… Etc.
Rust: The Phantom Menace