Re: (OT) Re: memory management

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Bert Peers wrote:
>
> Actually I should have said : "... and need some SDKs but no OOP".  Because that
> is what the general sentiment actually is, the kernel and other "real world" stuff
> is still
> written in C so that's interpreted like "for the real work, C++ is still too
> slow/immature/obfuscated/beta/whatever".  At least that's the impression I get from
> watching some Linux developers.  OO is academic and C++ is slow.

You misunderstand why Kernel's and major libraries like OpenGL are not
written
in C++...well, actually they might be written in C++ - but the API's are
never
in C++.

The reason for this is simple.  A major service API must be written so
it
can be accessed from C, C++, Fortran, Cobol, you name it.  There is no
way
that C programs could run portably if (for example) the UNIX interface
layers were object-oriented with C interfaces.

It's nothing to do with the quality, usability, performance or anything
else of C++ ...it's simply that you have to play to the lowest common
denominator.  Heck, most OS API's can be driven with structures of any
kind!  There are a couple of exceptions in the UNIX standard library -
but
not many.

> > My hart goes to Scheme. Objective-C is such a useful and
> > clean/small addition to C that I just can't belive nobody uses it. OTOH C++ is
> > such a messy bloat that I can't belive anybody would wan't to use it!
> 
> This I guess is a matter of taste.  But again that's not what I meant to argue,
> maybe you're right in that Objective-C can offer more robustness and cleaner
> interfaces if a C++ SDK would be redesigned in O-C - but the problem is that
> the Linux community doesn't want OO at all, be it clean or bloated.

I think the relative acceptance of C++ over OC is more a matter or speed
than
of ease of coding, etc.
 
> > All will argue that C++ offers you many useful things, like function and
> > operator overloading, multiple inheritance and templates, but 90% of those will
> > later agree that operator overloading is a bad thing and should not be used,
> > multiple inheritance creates more problems than it's worth and templates should
> > be avoided at all costs. What is left then?

I agree - I've been a C++ programmer since the very first cut of the
language
(the AT&T translator) when if you found a bug, you had to phone Bjarne
to get it
worked on.  I've tried every feature of the language at one time or
another
and I've definitely come to the same conclusion:  'operator'
overloading,
multiple inheritance and templates are definitely mis-features...and you
won't
see them used in any of my code.  I'd add 'friend', exceptin handling
and
stream I/O to that list too.

However, it's easy to avoid features that are bad - just as good C
programmers
avoid 'goto'.

Just like so many things in software, C++ was essentially complete in
it's very
first release - almost everything that's been added since then is just
syntactic
fluff.

> Is that the 90% of the community that's not getting enough time off from their day
> jobs to keep educated on the latest software tech ? :^)  I don't know why templates
> are evil, and imho overloading is cool too, but talks about may be better taken
> offline

Overloading is OK - (great in fact) - but OPERATOR overloading is evil
because
it can result in people writing code that leads you to believe you
understand
it when in fact you don't.

Templates generate code 'behind your back' - and technology of current
linkers
an debuggers doesn't make them very stable in practical implementations.

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1@airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker@hti.com      (work)