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In Defense of C++

(dayvster.com)
185 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | 16 Sep 25 19:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.235s | source
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s20n ◴[17 Sep 25 02:54 UTC] No.45271070[source]▶
I believe most C++ gripes are a classic case of PEBKAC.

One of the most common complaints is the lack of a package manager. I think this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how the ecosystem works. Developers accustomed to language-specific dependency managers like npm or pip find it hard to grasp that for C++, the system's package manager (apt, dnf, brew) is the idiomatic way to handle dependencies.

Another perpetual gripe is that C++ is bad because it is overly complex and baroque, usually from C folks like Linus Torvalds[1]. It's pretty ironic, considering the very compiler they use for C (GCC), is written in C++ and not in C.

[1]: Torvalds' comment on C++ <https://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus>

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1. DarkNova6 ◴[18 Sep 25 12:07 UTC] No.45288608[source]▶
> Developers accustomed to language-specific dependency managers like npm or pip find it hard to grasp that for C++, the system's package manager (apt, dnf, brew) is the idiomatic way to handle dependencies.

This is a strawman argument. Just because pip and npm are a mess and security liabilities does not make the c++ situation less bad. A fair comparison would be for languages that got their act together and use cargo, maven or nuget.

Linus is also not alone with his opinion in favouring Rust over C++. I would be hard pressed to use his persona in a negative case.