C sucks to write and take care of memory, but it’s nice for super efficient code for use on smart watches. Samsung ditched it (tizen- native apps written in C) in favor of wearOS (java?), and their battery life is now less than half what it was.
I haven’t used it in a while, so I don’t remember off the top of my head. I guess the main thing is the syntax is much more natural than C-likes. It can be wordy but the flip side is that it’s easier to read and decipher.
I don’t really think it has a future though. It was released in the 80s and suffers the same constraints from backwards compatibility as any other old language. Also it was intended to run on everything, so they limited the character set, which resulta in round brackets being the only brackets there are, which can lead to ambiguous code where for example you’re not sure if you’re accessing an array or calling a function that has the same name.
I really want a safe language that has actual nice syntax instead of some gibberish with lots of symbols, and Ada is the closest I’ve found, but she’s old and forgotten now.
WearOS is based on Android, which uses Android Runtime (ART) as the application runtime. ART uses Java (or any other JVM-compatible language, such as Kotlin) as the development language, but compiles the app to native code when it’s installed on a client device.
I hate writing code in either language. But at least what C has going for it is that it’s waaaay simpler than C++. Simple can be a really good thing. Sure, all those cool features can save you time, but they can also be gotchas that will cause bugs.
Though it is a balancing act. Too simple and you’ll make mistakes due to how much you have to repeat yourself or using unsafe equivalents (like using preprocessor directives to mimic features that C++ natively supports).
It’s the amount of legacy it’s carrying on that drives me crazy. Many of the implicit default implementations are confusing. That’s where all these “rule of 3”, “rule of 7”, “rule of whatever” come from. The way arguments are passed into functions is another issue. From the call-side you (sometimes) cannot tell if you’ll end up with a moved value or a dangling reference. The compiler will not stop you from using it. Even if the compiler has something to tell you, it’ll do it on the most cryptic way possible. I’m grateful we have C++, it paid lots of my bills. But it’s also a pain in the ass.
The most recent C++ thing I worked on (not that recent, like 5 years or so ago) was a fairly new project and the people working on it were really passionate about C++. But it was C++ code that ran as a Python library and was using the official Python C bindings. Not sure why we didn’t use one of the unofficial C++ libraries, but the usage of that C library (and such a fundamental one) held things back. We wrote was was modern C++ (at the time), but big chunks would be a completely different style.
Come on. C++ isn’t thaaat bad. It’s actually kind of nice to use coming from C.
I’m reading this and all I can think is “yeah, I too would rather lose a limb than let a necrotic infection spread.”
C sucks to write and take care of memory, but it’s nice for super efficient code for use on smart watches. Samsung ditched it (tizen- native apps written in C) in favor of wearOS (java?), and their battery life is now less than half what it was.
Ruuuuuuust
All this talk of Rust I’m seeing makes me so sad Ada was never given a fair chance.
First time I’m hearing about it. Any fun gimmicks?
I haven’t used it in a while, so I don’t remember off the top of my head. I guess the main thing is the syntax is much more natural than C-likes. It can be wordy but the flip side is that it’s easier to read and decipher.
I don’t really think it has a future though. It was released in the 80s and suffers the same constraints from backwards compatibility as any other old language. Also it was intended to run on everything, so they limited the character set, which resulta in round brackets being the only brackets there are, which can lead to ambiguous code where for example you’re not sure if you’re accessing an array or calling a function that has the same name.
I really want a safe language that has actual nice syntax instead of some gibberish with lots of symbols, and Ada is the closest I’ve found, but she’s old and forgotten now.
Holy hell Java on a Smartwatch?
WearOS is based on Android, which uses Android Runtime (ART) as the application runtime. ART uses Java (or any other JVM-compatible language, such as Kotlin) as the development language, but compiles the app to native code when it’s installed on a client device.
So… Kind of?
I hate writing code in either language. But at least what C has going for it is that it’s waaaay simpler than C++. Simple can be a really good thing. Sure, all those cool features can save you time, but they can also be gotchas that will cause bugs.
Though it is a balancing act. Too simple and you’ll make mistakes due to how much you have to repeat yourself or using unsafe equivalents (like using preprocessor directives to mimic features that C++ natively supports).
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It’s the amount of legacy it’s carrying on that drives me crazy. Many of the implicit default implementations are confusing. That’s where all these “rule of 3”, “rule of 7”, “rule of whatever” come from. The way arguments are passed into functions is another issue. From the call-side you (sometimes) cannot tell if you’ll end up with a moved value or a dangling reference. The compiler will not stop you from using it. Even if the compiler has something to tell you, it’ll do it on the most cryptic way possible. I’m grateful we have C++, it paid lots of my bills. But it’s also a pain in the ass.
The most recent C++ thing I worked on (not that recent, like 5 years or so ago) was a fairly new project and the people working on it were really passionate about C++. But it was C++ code that ran as a Python library and was using the official Python C bindings. Not sure why we didn’t use one of the unofficial C++ libraries, but the usage of that C library (and such a fundamental one) held things back. We wrote was was modern C++ (at the time), but big chunks would be a completely different style.
C++ was necessary, and truly great compared to its predecessor. But the world has marched on. Rust is the current benchmark.
Depends on the use case, for HPC c++ is still the benchmark.
Yeah, some of the world marches slower than other parts.
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Is there a way to disable the old c++ features? Or some kind of linter that points them out and suggests the new ways?
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Any suggestions for linter?
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I used COBOL to write a small program, and it’s not so bad either. Bonus is that your standards are lowered so much that Java feels concise.
Laughs in ADA