Multi-Device C++ is used everywhere on planet Earth and beyond

http://blogs.embarcadero.com/davidi/2013/02/26/42586

by T-zex • 13 years ago

30 34 13 years ago

blogs.embarcadero.com

ditoa• 13 years ago

This is just an advert for C++ Builder XE3. There is nothing in this article that a C++ programmer does not already know.

malbs• 13 years ago

Yeah amazing they finally managed to ship it. XE3 came out last September, and had essentially nothing new over XE2. They had to pull C++ support because it was so buggy. Anyone who has been a C++ Builder customer will no doubt be excited, finally a 64 bit RAD Studio C++ compiler they can migrate to. Last big update C++ Builder customers got was (woo) unicode support quite a few years ago.

tinco6• 13 years ago

I see this article as a battle plan. If we want to rid the world of C++ (and we as the programmers community certainly should in my opinion) it has to be done by building a language/platform that addresses the needs of the software mentioned.

Looking at the graph it amazes me Microsoft has not tried to tackle this more directly. C# and Haskell only attack the application level, why was there never an effort from them to improve the system level?

skurmedel2• 13 years ago

Invent a good alternative then. There are reasons why you don't run Haskell in a fighter jet.

And you can certainly write crappy Haskell too. It is hip to shit on C++, I get it. But for some types of software there is not a good alternative.

hermanhermitage• 13 years ago

Sorry... Fat finger trade - I accidentally downvoted you instead of up (not sure how to revert it)

Pity the down vote isn't on the far right of the heading.

tinco6• 13 years ago

I fully agree it is quite easy and maybe even too easy to write crappy Haskell but that is completely beside the point. I don't shit on C++ because that is a hip thing to do, whatever that means. C++ is still used in some fields, and obviously C# and Haskell (and by extension all modern languages) suck for those fields.

I think C++ was a bad idea from the start, because it attempts to be a strict superset of C, which is like trying to win a race while being tied to the current front runner. It might have allowed C++ to use the rope to get in front, but now its in front it just drags the language down.

I am trying to invent a good alternative, but obviously that is easier said than done. I like to talk about it openly and provocatively so others who are more qualified to do it might jump in and try too.

smosher3• 13 years ago

> But for some types of software there is not a good alternative.

This is exactly it. As much as many people dislike C++, not having it at all would be very bad for some areas. Users of the next major systems language should regard C++ in much the same way as (willing) users of C++ regard C.

The takeaway here should be about how much better the future can be, not how bad the present looks. The former is hopefully much less controversial than the latter.

JanneVee2• 13 years ago

Why should all programmers try to get rid of C++? IMHO as the programming community should try to enhance the craft. To write better code irregardless of language(including C++).

tinco6• 13 years ago

No I don't think that is how it works. Programmers enhance the craft by applying technologies (like C++) and finding their weak spots and correcting those with new tools.

Enhancing your own craft has a ceiling (that of the technology), advancing technology has none.

lccarrasco• 13 years ago

Would you mind explaining why do you think we should get rid of C++? Do you have the same opinion regarding C (since you talked about the system level)?

tinco6• 13 years ago

Yes, C is 70's technology. That C++ is based off C is one of the reasons it is so bad. Problems range from compilation times to weird syntax choices to the complete lack of higher level constructs which C++ only barely makes up for.

frozenport2• 13 years ago

MS put in an effort to improve the system level with their Singularity project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_%28operating_system...).

I personally love C/C++, write my guile scripts in vim, and see no reason to replace it.

pnathan• 13 years ago

Right now the language I see as most positioned for serious work is the Mozilla Rust language. There have been a few stabs at a type-safe deterministic language- BitC and SystemC come to mind.

Loosely, you're looking for a language where you can ensure that garbage collection won't happen and that assembly can be written. Those languages aren't popular these days. Then what's needed is some level of type safety and guarantees about efficient code generation. You should be able to reason quite well about the generated code. "No Magic" is the watchword of that land.

Rust is targeting the next level up from kernels, i.e., system utilities and performant applications. It's not really intended to write kernels, but I think it can get there with some careful work. It should, IMO, do reasonably well on more powerful embedded systems based around typical OS models, e.g., the RasPI.

kybernetyk• 13 years ago

> rid the world of C++

Why? If you don't like it don't use it. There are enough people who are happy with C++ because it perfectly fits their domain.

frozenport2• 13 years ago

"YOU are full of bullshit." (quote from Linus)

I'm pretty sure the Linux kernel uses C.

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57643...

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eric_bullington• 13 years ago

I think it's a bit disingenuous to write that Linux uses C++. Clearly, the kernel is in C, and nothing else. There is no C++ runtime support in the kernel.

I get that there are userland applications in C++, but coreutils and all the GNU apps traditionally used in Linux distros are in C. And if you're counting userland apps, then you might as well say that Python and even JavaScript are the language of Linux, particularly since their use is growing more and more in most distros. Clearly, no one would make such a claim, so why for C++.

thebear• 13 years ago

I think it's a bit disingenuous to write that Linux uses C++.

I like the civility in this sentence, yet I'm inclined to say that it's more than just "a bit disingenuous." Is there anybody who has not read this post by Linus Thorvalds on C++:

http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus

richo2• 13 years ago

gcc just switched to C++, clang always has been.

While this isn't "linux" per se, it's also kinda hard to do anything useful on a GNU/Linux system at this point without a working C++ compiler.

Scramblejams5• 13 years ago

It isn't just C++ that could do with replacing.

I want the speed of C.

I want the soft realtime characteristics, practical functional, highly granular GC, lightweight message passing concurrency, hot code reloading and easy parallelism traits of Erlang.

I want the fault tolerance and network distribution tools of OTP.

I want to have access to hard realtime performance with some additional work.

I want type inference, and a static type system which stays out of your way but can approach the if-it-compiles-it's-probably-bugless ideal, yet without weighing you down where you don't need it. (When it comes to dynamic vs static typing, I'd like a slider that I can move at will.)

I want immutability to be the default.

I want pattern matching and code-is-data macros.

I want recognition that the best part of object orientation is interfaces rather than inheritance, but with a way to provide default implementations.

I want a syntax that's very readable (with a gofmt-style standard) and easy to refactor without resorting to a heavyweight IDE. Parenthetically, I am not opposed to parentheses. Its LoC counts should compete with the most expressive languages without sacrificing much readability -- if that means some readability for newbies is sacrificed, so be it, but it should read easily once you've progressed beyond the neophyte stage.

Whenever we get those promised 1000 cores on a single chip, I want this language to scale beautifully onto that kind of CPU.

If I can't write a hard realtime aircraft flight control system, a competitive 3D graphics engine, a complex web app, a word processor, a highly parallel distributed numeric solver, a fault tolerant telecom switch, a variety of throwaway sysadmin and text processing scripts and a selection of games across multiple platforms without feeling like this language was the most appropriate choice for all of these tasks, then it doesn't do everything I want.

I haven't done much with Ada or Eiffel, or enough with Lisp or Haskell, so this list is probably too short on that basis alone.

And once I have all of those things, I'll have another list.

tinco6• 13 years ago

That's a fine list, and when said like that it might even be fun to implement and relatively easy to accomplish, but there's a bigger battle before you can write any of the software systems you mention.

You need all those things _and_ interoperability with existing libraries that are written in C and C++, preferably both ways. That is a lot less fun to implement.

Another thing is that implicit in the 'realtime' part of your requirement is that you don't want a runtime system, and that bugs a whole bunch of your earlier wishes. It also makes the language less interesting as many of the cool features of modern languages depend on runtimes (it's why we can't use Rust or Go!)

Whoever designs the new language needs to have a lot of restraint, knowing all the fancy things modern languages have, and picking only those that can be implemented whilst satisfying the needs that those core applications have.

Scramblejams5• 13 years ago

Oh, I forgot interoperability! I've grown so accustomed to connecting my Erlang programs to C++ libraries through the simplicity of ports that I erred.

Thanks for adding to my list -- the more the merrier. :-)

It would be interesting to make the runtime optional, to see how close together the two runtimey and runtimeless subsets could get. Or, perhaps it would be possible to mark a section of code as runtime-free. IIRC some work's been done on that but I don't think it's ever been practical.

Scramblejams5• 13 years ago

tinco, as with most programming language dilettantes I have a wishlist for my ultimate language, but I've never actually implemented one. Where would you suggest I start? And where should I go after that?

smosher3• 13 years ago

I think you want what I want, which is some way to marry Scheme and Rust.

z3phyr• 13 years ago

AAA high quality video game engines are always writern in C/C++

Video games are one of the domains where C++ will always tend to be THE standard choice, indispensible when creating engines.

richo2• 13 years ago

Read this: http://miek.nl/downloads/2010/c++-talk.pdf?we-require-more-d...

Then read the article again. C++ terrifies me.

Multi-Device C++ is used everywhere on planet Earth and beyond

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