this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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Kinda sad how that guy destroys his reputation so late in his life. I mean he actually contributed a lot to the field of software development, but just refuses to accept that C++ days are thankfully over. The language has grown into a complete abomination, but all the experience we gained during its long history (good and bad) are extremely valuable for designing new languages from now on. One can't rescue a design by just adding things to it (regardless of the kind of design), that's just a simple truth. Thus, a backwards compatible C++ can never become even half as good as rust is already today (and there's of course always room for improvement). But that's not because bjarne did something stupid, but because humanity as a whole didn't know better back than. He could just accept that, embrace new technology, retire in dignity, be remembered as highly admired and appreciated. Instead he acts like a butthurt idiot, trying to defend that cars shouldn't have seatbelts, because if everyone drives carefully, nothing bad will happen anyway. Pathetic.
This statement could also be applied to Perl, PHP, JavaScript, and most other languages that eventually add new ways of doing things, especially if they preserve backward compatibility. I'm not sure that this is a condemnation of C++ so much as an inevitable consequence of being successful for a long time.
To be clear, I'm not defending C++. Just pointing out that it's not unusual in this regard. I have no doubt that Rust will also have vestigial warts in time, if it doesn't already.
Why can’t it be both a condemnation of C++ AND an inevitable consequence of success? C++ was a success, but we’ve learned a lot and it’s time to move on
Condemning apples for having seeds doesn't make a reasonable case for choosing other fruit, which also have seeds.
it does if the other ones have edible seeds, seeds without arsenic, or fewer seeds... your analogy makes no sense.
You are very close to a deep truth of language design: all large popular languages slowly die from committees overloading them with cruft and redundant features, and at the end of their healthspans, they become painful for all involved. In your list, this includes both PHP and ECMAScript; Perl 5 avoided this fate, but Raku certainly suffers from it.
Tell me you drank the Rust Kool-Aid, without telling me you drank it.
Person who has never used a popular language mistakes its users for a cult! Film at 11.
Bringing more modern tools and features to existing large code bases is "destroying his reputation"? Bjarne and the committee is constantly extending and modernizing a language with code bases older than me. Yes that means the old stuff has to be kept around but that is the price of allowing existing code to migrate gracefully instead of just throwing it out of the window. There is a problem with some missing rails to enforce current and saver techniques but Bjarne is not denying that.
Bringing more modern tools and features into C++ is good. Acting as if that would make it equally suitable for new projects or even equally safe as languages that don't (yet) suffer from carrying around a ton of legacy garbage nobody should use (both in terms of features and std items) is ridiculous though.