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[G-Flex]

He's saying that it's hard to write robust code that actually works properly in all cases without being highly experienced, extremely careful, and poring over documentation while you do it.

[Blacken]

Blacken, are you arguing that C/C++ is bad because of handling user input?
Every programming language has the problem of handling user input.

No. I'm saying that C/C++ sucks because it's a throwback to the 80's that isn't even consistent with itself and encourages absolutely abortionate practices that ingrain bad habits in otherwise potentially skilled programmers.

What I'm getting is that he's saying that C++ is not good for beginner's.

Yes. A skilled programmer (of the people on this forum who I know personally, that's Baughn, Shades, psyn, Nadaka, and me--probably forgetting one or two) can moderate some of the giant fucking fails of C++. I doubt any of us write bulletproof C++. I strongly doubt any of us could write good C++ from starting with C++, and not learning sane languages that provide a different (and, IMO, better) view on software development.

The only people who should be using C++ are people who need it for a specific purpose. Newbies are never these people. Hell, I'm not these people, and I am a more skilled and capable developer than most of the participants in this conversation.

He's saying that it's hard to write robust code that actually works properly in all cases without being highly experienced, extremely careful, and poring over documentation while you do it.

Yes. It's doubly hard in a language that actively hates you and works against you like C and C++.

[qwertyuiopas]

Yes. It's doubly hard in a language that actively hates you and works against you like C and C++.

C doesn't actively hate or work against you.

These do.

Now, try to make smething like Dwarf Fortress in any higher level language. 10 dwarves on a 2x2 map would lag.

Now, consider that unlike many languages, C and C++ support loading libraries written by other people. See where this is going?

All you need is a decent library that takes your concerns into consideration, and you get both the "proper" way to do it, without even needing to know how(bad idea, except at while learning), but none of the overhead incurred by higher level languages.

However, there are *already* plenty of libraries included with any compiler.

So, why don't they make "better" default implementations? I suspect it is because they decided to make them most versatile without incurring excessive overhead rather than bothering to make one function do everything for you, and end up with further bloated programs.

[Blacken]

C doesn't actively hate or work against you.

Yeah, any language that actively facilitates return-to-libc errors and encourages you to use gatepost-terminated strings for actual serious code has to be just plain awesome. Wrong.

Now, try to make smething like Dwarf Fortress in any higher level language. 10 dwarves on a 2x2 map would lag.

Have you done performance analyses on JIT code? I have, and basic data manipulation--which is what Dwarf Fortress is--is not significantly slower than native code. Wrong.

Now, consider that unlike many languages, C and C++ support loading libraries written by other people.

What?  What the fuck? Do you actually even know what you're talking about? Wrong.

(Oh, wait, you're going to bring up those retarded little toy languages like Brainfuck, because you're incapable of admitting when you've said something staggeringly stupid. Don't waste my [bad word-tt] time.)

All you need is a decent library that takes your concerns into consideration, and you get both the "proper" way to do it, without even needing to know how(bad idea, except at while learning), but none of the overhead incurred by higher level languages.

Oh man, I laughed. What actual experience do you have in the real world? Insanely [bad word-tt] wrong.

However, there are *already* plenty of libraries included with any compiler.

Not wrong, but also utterly irrelevant.

So, why don't they make "better" default implementations? I suspect it is because they decided to make them most versatile without incurring excessive overhead rather than bothering to make one function do everything for you, and end up with further bloated programs.

You don't have enough of a clue about how software is built or designed to "suspect" jack and shit. In any case--Wrong.



I honestly don't think you're qualified enough to perform the self-analysis to understand that you are wrong about these things. You are too invested in being right to even attempt to be correct. Are you incapable of just acknowledging that you are not the hot shit you think you are and that you just don't fucking know what you're talking about? Is it that hard for you? You have been repeatedly and consistently shown to be utterly full of shit on every programming topic you have tried to argue with competent people like me or psyn. You have no credibility, and you apparently lack the self-awareness to realize how very, very little you actually know.

Go learn. You aren't well-educated enough to keep talking.

[G-Flex]

Yes. It's doubly hard in a language that actively hates you and works against you like C and C++.

C doesn't actively hate or work against you.

These do.

You're completely disregarding what he means by "work against you", which I feel he has already adequately explained. His point is that the way the language is structured - and even the conventions used to write its libraries, including the STL - are loaded with antipatterns that make it extremely easy to shoot yourself in the foot unless you're more careful than most people care to be, know more than most people know, and have a hell of a lot of experience. It "works against you" in the sense that it's almost impossible to work with in the intended manner. You can hardly even treat C++ like a truly higher-level/OOP language, because you have to concern yourself too much with the trivial details of everything you work with.

Now, try to make smething like Dwarf Fortress in any higher level language. 10 dwarves on a 2x2 map would lag.

Holy shit this is just wrong. For one thing, I'm going to treat "10 dwarves on a 2x2 map" as intentional exaggeration, because otherwise, you're more wrong than you would be otherwise (but you're still wrong).

Yes, working in lower-level languages can afford you opportunities to make extremely finely-tuned systems, because you're controlling every low-level aspect you're working with. However, this is both not entirely necessary and also not at all feasible for people to do for a complex program. In fact, higher-level language constructs exist to make programming complex software actually possible without wanting to tear your hair out or kill a man.

Also: Higher level than what? C++ attempts to be "high-level" and fails at it.

Now, consider that unlike many languages, C and C++ support loading libraries written by other people. See where this is going?

This is not a feature exclusive to C/C++ in any way, shape, or form. It would be extraordinarily difficult to make this impossible in a programming language that lets you properly define your own functions (and classes, etc. in the case of OOP) and reuse them.

All you need is a decent library that takes your concerns into consideration, and you get both the "proper" way to do it, without even needing to know how(bad idea, except at while learning), but none of the overhead incurred by higher level languages.

If you can rely on utilities like libraries to function as "black boxes" which do what you want to do without you knowing how they work, then you are necessarily working with a "higher-level language" in the first place.

However, there are *already* plenty of libraries included with any compiler.

So, why don't they make "better" default implementations? I suspect it is because they decided to make them most versatile without incurring excessive overhead rather than bothering to make one function do everything for you, and end up with further bloated programs.

Blacken stated that the reason there aren't "better" default implementations is due to flaws in the language itself in many cases. Things like Boost exist to stretch C++ as far as it can go, but that's another matter.

Seriously, it's not about making "one function do everything". That doesn't make sense. At all. It's about a function working properly and in a consistent manner. A function signaling that it has encountered an error properly is not bloat.



Seriously, you have to stop this. You are embarrassing yourself. I'm not saying that to insult you. I'm saying that because it's obvious you're ill-educated (probably more miseducated than uneducated, but certainly both) in the subject, yet you refuse to admit this. You obviously do not know much about computer science or programming, and that's fine, but you have to stop pretending that you do, or at least get your information straight. Seriously, this has reached the point where I doubt anybody reading this is even going to take you seriously at all. The fact that you think using other people's libraries is a feature exclusive to C/C++ says a lot about how well-qualified you are to be saying the things you are saying.

[Blacken]

Put simply, by a good friend of mine who has worked at nVidia and Microsoft (and is a partner in my gamedev venture) after he read the clusterfuck that is this thread:

(11:25:05 PM) Alex: C has two purposes. C++ has one.
(11:25:30 PM) Alex: C's purposes are a) systems level software where, at some point, you will need to touch assembly or interrupts or the like
(11:25:39 PM) Me (AIM): agreed.
(11:26:06 PM) Alex: and b) to teach people how their programs *really* interact with the OS, and of all the problems and gotchas that happen when you do so
(11:27:31 PM) Alex: C++'s purpose is to throw a few extra tools at C in a hope of making massive projects that require C a little easier to handle. It requires more discipline than C to use properly, but as a systems programmer (and if you're not a systems programmer, stop using C) that shouldn't be a problem, since you're already thinking about even deeper details.
(11:27:50 PM) Alex: C and C++ are shorthand for assembly, and anyone who claims otherwise is making a mistake.
(11:29:12 PM) Alex: [Regarding that robustness problem I posed in this thread:] if your program requires more than try { print ( input() + input() );} catch (E) { print "There's a problem" } then the language requires you to preemptively think about too many edge cases.

[Jookia]

C/C++ is incredibly easy to navigate and use once you read a few tutorials. I'm writing an entire game engine in it and haven't had any problems with the language.

If you don't like C/C++, don't flame it. It's purely opinion. If there were anything better, engines and operating systems wouldn't be using them.

With all due respect, show me a language where you can do something easier than in C/C++.

[Blacken]

C/C++ is incredibly easy to navigate and use once you read a few tutorials. I'm writing an entire game engine in it and haven't had any problems with the language.

Oh. You're writing a game engine in it because you've read a few tutorials. Oh. Great.

I have used it for nearly a decade in software that has actually been used by paying customers.

Guess what? It's still a maggot-ridden piece of shit designed for one specific purpose. Using it outside that area is moronic. I don't know if you're paying attention, Mister "C++ has bracekts," but I have noted repeatedly that you should use the most abstracted tool possible for any given endeavor. For systems programming, that is C/C++. For anything higher-level, that is not C/C++.

If you don't like C/C++, don't flame it. It's purely opinion.

Jesus fucking wept. It's not "purely opinion" that you see stack-smashing attacks and return-to-libc attacks in C and no equivalents anywhere else--you might find logic bugs elsewhere but not failures by design of the sort found in the C and C++ standards! I mean, hell, do you even know what a return-to-libc attack is? Do you know what a stack frame is? Do you know what shellcode is? Do you know why these things matter? Do you have any idea how fucking fragile and vulnerable C/C++ code is, especially C/C++ code that's written by morons who think they're hard and think they actually know more than they do?



Of course, clearly I can't know any of this stuff. I can't be way more familiar with C/C++ than you. I can't...you know...have used it extensively and have built up a solid knowledge of the topic. I can't have an informed opinion, and I certainly can't be certain that you don't from observing your general ineptitude in discussions about programming and technology in general.

Nah.

Must just be a hater.

If there were anything better, engines and operating systems wouldn't be using them.

Look. You know why operating systems suck? Why they're buggy, why they're insecure, why they're so trivially attacked? Because they use C! Do you know why they still do it? Because there isn't anything better!

Use the most abstracted tool possible for any given endeavor.
Use the most abstracted tool possible for any given endeavor.
Use the most abstracted tool possible for any given endeavor.

For anything more higher-level there are better tools and to start learning the headfucked little mess that is C++ is to learn bad practices that are incredibly hard to unlearn.


As for game engines? Two things. One: get it right out of your head that game developers are some kind of magical mystical genius programmers. More of them suck than do in any real industry, because they tend to be paid like shit and the good developers can make more money elsewhere. Their decisions are not somehow special or above challenge because they're HURR GAME DEVELOPERS. If anything, that's a better reason to challenge them. Two: Most of them are using middleware products developed by people so beyond your capabilities as a programmer that you can't even understand it. They are standing on the shoulders of giants to build games, because if they were left to their own devices most of them probably couldn't do it. The software they used is built by people who are well-paid and are hot-shit programmers, and that reduces the issues involved with writing a mindboggling amount of C++ and hoping it hangs together.

You are not a hot-shit programmer. You are a beginner programmer. Not even intermediate: you are a raw beginner. The thread-starter is a complete and utter beginner. You are not as capable or as competent as these people. You are not capable of doing what they do. Pointing at them as an reason for writing your own C++ when you don't absolutely have to is to fail to understand your limitations and the limitations of your tools. Which is fine: you can write shitty bad code all day long. What's not fine is people like you trying to give advice to newbies who don't realize that you don't know better and that they shouldn't listen to people like you, and that's why I speak up. Because you're not qualified nor capable of giving good advice.

With all due respect, show me a language where you can do something easier than in C/C++.

Is this a joke? My 11-year-old brother could answer this question.



I can write a log parser in Perl in about five minutes, capable of handling input of arbitrary size and using safe, fast regexes that have been experimentally and algorithmically verified to be correct. I'll be done before the idiot who uses C++ gets his input stage working.

Or how about web apps? Oh, man. I know! I'll implement CGI or ISAPI and write it all in C! Oh, wait. I won't, because I'm not a moron, I'll use PHP or Python or ASP.NET.

Or how about databases? Yeah, we'll go far with static types when we want to manipulate a database, that'll be great! Or I can use PHP and PDO and do what I need to do before some C nitwit has even figured out how to submit a meaningful database query. If I'm feeling fancy, maybe I'll even use ORM and build the queries automatically! (You do know what ORM is, right?)

Or how about GUI code? Oh, man, GTK+ is so fucking hot, and so's MFC and ATL! Oh...wait, you mean that I can just inherit System.Windows.Forms.Form in .NET and add controls with two lines apiece? Aw, shit...

Or...how about anywhere I don't have to write "extern" or "asm" and don't have to give two shits about interrupts?



There's no good reason to use C or C++ if you aren't writing a driver, an operating system, or microprocessor code. You can be very very sad that I'm being mean and you can say that it's "just my opinion," but neither you nor the other yahoo have done anything except bleat defensively. You've got no ground to stand on, and it's painfully obvious.

You don't know enough to know what you don't know. Stop it.

[Karantza]

Hi. I'm Alex, Blacken's friend. He linked me to this article to get my thoughts on it. Since what I'm saying is purely opinion, I should first express my qualifications.

I'm currently a year away from my masters in Computer Engineering, specializing in computer graphics and hardware interfacing. My thesis is on accelerating the simulation of analog circuits using CUDA and modern GPUs. I was able to work on the OS-level driver for one of NVIDIA's new chipsets (in the 300 series, I believe) and am currently working at Microsoft in their Windows User Experience team. I have extensive experience in linux as well (just because I work on Win8 doesn't mean I don't whip out the Gentoo from time to time).

Now that you can properly decide how much I know about C, assembly, and higher level languages, let me make a few comments.

C/C++ is incredibly easy to navigate and use once you read a few tutorials.

Sure, C style syntax is easy to learn. If you can code Java, you can probably pick up C++. You'll need to have some references on how to compile it (if you're using GCC), say, and you'll probably need to trust cppreference.com for the syntax of the library, but it works. And it's fast! It's compiled down to native bytecode and directly jumping to OS libraries running in kernel mode!

This is all well and good until you realize that most of what you've been doing is programming C++, not programming your game/server/application. What does that little asterisk mean? The ampersand? How are they different? Coming from Java, you'd need a whole introduction to the Von Neumann computing model, how the OS gives you pages of memory, and what it means to allocate and free them. This is a perfect time to apply the DRY principle. Don't Repeat Yourself. If you're ever doing anything that's been done before, or that doesn't have an immediate and necessary purpose that furthers your goal for the module, yer doin it rong.

And, did you notice that I pulled a reference website off the top of my head? I've been programming in C and C++ for at least 6 years (and not a week goes by where I don't use it) and I still need to read the damn man pages.

I'm writing an entire game engine in it and haven't had any problems with the language. If you don't like C/C++, don't flame it. It's purely opinion. If there were anything better, engines and operating systems wouldn't be using them.

You're right. Game engines and operating systems do use C. But do you know why? Can you tell me exactly why they need it?

C is an abstraction of assembly language. There is nothing between you and the ISA. This is necessary when you are writing an operating system, because the operating system's job is to *be* the layer between applications and the ISA. It handles interrupts, it handles driver abstraction. The only reason that you can write "printf" and have it work in a DOS shell and in bash is because the OS is abstracting that away for you. Computers aren't a stack of turtles, someone does need to do the dirty work at the bottom. This is why C is (and will be for the forseeable future) necessary in operating systems and drivers. When you use C in higher level applications, though, you're taking on all the responsibility of dealing with the hardware and reap very few benefits. I know most programmers. I want them to have as little responsibility as possible; it'll let them focus on making good applications, not good Turing sequences.

Now on to my favorite, game engines. You say you're writing a game engine. Good for you. The C++ game engine I've been working on for the past four years is currently up to 126,442 lines. It doesn't yet directly support networking, but all the hooks are in place. I plan on studying Unreal Engine's networking algorithms and plopping in a good layer above UDP over the summer.

Speaking of those hooks that are in place, have you noticed how it's really difficult to keep everything private that should be? I might need to call a function on a member object and pass it a pointer to a structure the parent class doesn't know about (and thus can't make an interface for). My alternatives are to make a new interface for this structure (an empty class, really), expose the inner object so I can make the call directly, or use a void* to do the passing. All of those are bad solutions, since the call I want to make already expresses all the logic I should have to write, and each allows for other code somewhere (either written by someone else, or me long after I forgot how that worked) to do something disastrous. Writing code in one place should never need to show faults in another place.

I started in C++ because I too feared the speed issues associated with interpreted languages. I've done many tests myself (backed up by the internet) and the CLR is (running on Windows or in Mono), under game engine conditions, just as fast as native C. Not even joking. JIT is a wonderful thing.

Other languages like python, ruby, lua? Sure they're slower. But unless you really, really know what you're doing, it'll be fine. I do most of my algorithms out in python or lua before implementing them in C anyway. Easier to debug, faster turnaround. More productive. My engine even does it's game time processing in Lua, just like... hell, any of the games listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lua-scripted_video_games

They realize that only really math-heavy stuff (physics, networking, render buffer manipulation) need to actually be done in C. All the stuff that mere mortals (read: artists) need to touch? Handled in a much simpler language that's easy to read, easy to debug, and most importantly doesn't require you to type anything more than what you need to say.

With all due respect, show me a language where you can do something easier than in C/C++.

Ok, which languages would you want? What algorithm? And by "easier", I'm assuming you mean "less time, from inception to successful completion, for an average programmer". I might even let you replace "average" with "expert". I'd still say that any language I know is *easier* than C.

All that being said, I'm very glad I know C, and I think that if someone wants to call themselves a computer science student, they should understand the basics of processor architecture (and therefore know C and some form of assembly). If someone wants to write a game, though, *especially* if they're not intimately familiar with how computers really work, they should use an interpreted language. If their aim is really high enough that it's too slow, they should find out what specifically is slow, and then find a library to do it (or write one). Most "interpreted" languages are fast enough for any game. Not writing my engine in C# is a regret of mine. (I'm actually working on porting it now, but I only have so many hours in the day.)

So that's my opinion. It is, of course, supported with some decent arguments and massive experience, so unless you can invalidate these points or show that I'm arguing a wrong conclusion, I think the question has been answered.

[Jookia]

I don't care if you're qualified in computer engineering, you can still be a [bad word-threetoe] about stuff you write and work for a corrupt company.

Do I look like I care or the OP cares that C is an abstraction of assembly?

All I did was suggest for the man to use C/C++ as it has a wide range of libraries and jokingly because it has brackets, as opposed to Python (which is a shite languge IMO and shouldn't be used by anybody).

The fact is, the OP was trying to choose between C++ and Python, and I suggested C++.

[Blacken]

I don't care if you're qualified in computer engineering, you can still be a cunt about stuff you write and work for a corrupt company.

This is the best response ever. Three pages of well-turned prose explaining the problems with C, and you brush it off because he works for Microsoft. Never mind that he's more competent and qualified than you likely ever will be, he isn't worth listening to because he works for Microsoft. Well done.

And you call him a [bad word-threetoe]? I specifically asked him to post because he's nice about this stuff, and he was utterly inoffensive and polite. You owe him an apology.

Boy, you are in for a hard shock when the real world hits you between the eyes.

Do I look like I care or the OP cares that C is an abstraction of assembly?

If you actually want to get shit done, you damned well should.

All I did was suggest for the man to use C/C++ as it has a wide range of libraries and jokingly because it has brackets, as opposed to Python (which is a shite languge IMO and shouldn't be used by anybody).

Your opinion isn't backed up with competence or knowledge. Why should anyone give it a second thought?

The fact is, the OP was trying to choose between C++ and Python, and I suggested C++.

And you're wrong, and, like usual, Mr. "Oh, use Windows 98 on a laptop", you range between an annoyance and an outright danger to anyone who heeds your advice.

[Jookia]

I'm not brushing him off because he works for Microsoft, I'm brushing him off because he came in to this thread and swung his degrees around and who he works for to make himself seem bigger than everybody else.

[DrPizza]

C doesn't actively hate or work against you.

Really?

C is the only language still in serious (non-joke) mainstream usage in which even skilled practitioners will probably get a program that asks the person for their name, reads their name from the keyboard, and then prints it back out to them wrong.

It is one of the most hostile languages around. Indefensibly so.

[G-Flex]

He did not "swing his degrees around". He posted his qualifications as background material since he was necessarily talking about a matter of opinion and wanted to make his credentials clear.

His post was completely civil, to the point where I initially thought you were calling Blacken names. Are you intimidated by people who are more knowledgeable than you or something? I don't even understand. Oh well.

I highly suggest not calling new forum members by that word, though. Not exactly very respectable.

[Blacken]

I'm not brushing him off because he works for Microsoft, I'm brushing him off because he came in to this thread and swung his degrees around and who he works for to make himself seem bigger than everybody else.

Preposterous. He established his credentials before discussing his position. That you are offended by somebody being more well-credentialed than you are is immaterial.

You owe him an apology.