this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 73 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm barely competent at programming. What is the use case for Fortran, besides maintaining ancient code?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

A lot of computational heavy tasks for science were done in Fortran at least ten years ago (and I think still are). I was told that's mainly because Fortran has a good deal of libraries for just that, and it was widely taught in academia so this is a common ground between the older and newer generations.

I think it may be gradually superseded by Python, but I don't know if it is

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

A lot of the underlying libraries in python are actually written in Fortran (or were when they were conceived, and the Fortran components later replaced). Numpy, for example, was originally pretty much a wrapper on top of BLAS and LAPACK.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

It was designed from its very start to be used for numerical computing. So the language it built around it and it sort of excels in that use case.

This used to be the holy bible of numerical methods, if you want to see some sample code: https://s3.amazonaws.com/nrbook.com/book_F210.html

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You might be right, but I have heard that song a lot of times, python, java, ml, pascal, obscure webdev.languages, AI will do it, typescript, etc etc etc

I'd go with a better python than rust, you can put that "once in a lifetime asm optimized memsafe multi threaded code" in a package and just use it from python. But python has GIL and you can't just remove it so who knows what will be the next shiny thing? Probably several languages, like for easy peasy stuff up to hardcore multi threaded memory safe stuff. Gotta push us oldtimers out in some way, right :-) ?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But python has GIL and you can't just remove it so

https://docs.python.org/3/using/configure.html#cmdoption-disable-gil

The GIL appears to be slowly going away.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

What I meant with that is if you remove the GIL, the people have to understand parallel access to data and a lot of orher quite complicated paradigms, which defeats, IMO, the whole idea of having a "simpler" language paired with a more versatile but more complex and complicated language, like C++.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

... for the very reason that Fortran you can grasp in an evening.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I have seen decades of would-be "C++ killers" come and go. I think that in the end, it is C++ that kills C++.

I think you're right.

I am, admittedly, a card carrying member of the C++ curmudgeon club. But I would gladly gravitate to a sexy new C++ subset for my projects, if one gains some momentum.

I do a lot with goLang, right now, instead.

But I would adore joining with a community effort to choose reasonable safe default C++ libraries for a bunch of use cases, if one gained the traction to cover my own use cases.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

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.