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In Defense of C++

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185 points todsacerdoti | 2 comments | 16 Sep 25 19:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.403s | source
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loeg ◴[16 Sep 25 21:54 UTC] No.45268662[source]▶
> in C++, you can write perfectly fine code without ever needing to worry about the more complex features of the language. You can write simple, readable, and maintainable code in C++ without ever needing to use templates, operator overloading, or any of the other more advanced features of the language.

This... doesn't really hold water. You have to learn about what the insane move semantics are (and the syntax for move ctors/operators) to do fairly basic things with the language. Overloaded operators like operator*() and operator<<() are widely used in the standard library so you're forced to understand what craziness they're doing under the hood. Basic standard library datatypes like std::vector use templates, so you're debugging template instantiation issues whether you write your own templated code or not.

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1. 112233 ◴[17 Sep 25 06:00 UTC] No.45272274[source]▶
Exactly, the "you dont have" part lasts until the first error message and then it's 10 feet of stl template instantiation error avalanche. And stl implementation is really advanced c++. Also, a lot of "modern" code cannot be debugged at all (because putting in a print statement breaks constexprness) and your only recourse is reading code.

This is in big part also because of committee, that prefers hundred-line template monster "can_this_call_that_v" to a language feature, probably thinking that by not including something in language standard and offloading it to library they do good job.

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2. almostgotcaught ◴[18 Sep 25 11:57 UTC] No.45288531[source]▶
> your only recourse is reading code

Oh the horror!