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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I shouldn’t have used C++ as the example. Even C would work. I agree with everything you’re saying, but the original premise. I think if you put ASM vs C, C++, rust, etc, performance would fall near 50/50.

    I’m not the best assembly guy, and I’m not advocating we all write it. But I always felt that the compiler optimization assumption was wrong or weak. Everything would be aligned nicely for my sanity, not performance =]


  • jas0n@lemmy.worldtoRetroGaming@lemmy.worldHow hard could it be?
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    29 days ago

    I feel like that’s only true if I was asked to “write the assembly for this c++ program.” If I’m actually implementing something big in assembly, I’m not going to do 90% of the craziness someone might be tempted to do in c++. Something that is super easy in c++ doesn’t mean it’s easy for the CPU. Writing assembly, I’m going to do what’s easy for the CPU (and efficient) because, now, I’m in the same domain.

    The bottom line is cranking up the optimization level can get you a 2-5x win. Using memory efficiently can give you a 10-100x win.







  • I’m in the US, and I can assure you the amount of effort that would go into breaking that system would be 1000+ fold.

    Here’s the thing… your computer/phone, just to run programs, is sitting on somewhere around 40-50 million lines of code in the operating system. It’s got another 20-30 million for all the supporting user space libraries. People want to vote from any device, and operating systems have become walled gardens. Now we need to interact with browsers. That’s another 30 million lines. You know how many bugs I need to find to compromise a system? 1. It’s not necessarily a skill issue. It’s an attack surface issue.

    And this is assuming the bug was an accident. There are much more insidious vulnerabilities out there (see the recent exploit found in xz). Along that same vein, there could be exploit generators in the compilers (that’s 15 million lines) that build all these systems.

    We won’t have online voting until we fundamentally change how we compute. I don’t see that happening any time in the near future. None of these corporations are going to be breaking down their walls anytime soon.




  • jas0n@lemmy.worldtoProgrammer Humor@programming.devC++
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    5 months ago

    Just watched this. Thank you. I think I’d agree with most of what he says there. I like trying languages, and I did try rust. I didn’t like fighting with the compiler, but once I was done fighting the compiler, I was somehow 98% done with the project. It kind of felt like magic in that way. There are lots of great ideas in there, but I didn’t stick with it. A little too much for me in the end. One of my favorite parts C is how simple it is. Like you would never be able to show me a line of C I couldn’t understand.

    That said, I’ve fallen in love a language called Odin. Odin has a unique take on allocators in general. It actually gives you even more control than C while providing language support for the more basic containers like dynamic arrays and maps.


  • Hahaha. I knew I was wrong about the polymorphism there. You used big words and I’m a grug c programmer =]

    We use those generic containers in c as well. Just, that we roll our own.

    Move semantics in the general idea of ownership I can see more of a use for.

    I would just emphasize that manual memory management really isn’t nearly as scary as it’s made out to be. So, it’s frustrating to see the ridiculous lengths people go to to avoid it at the expense of everything else.


  • Maybe I’m wrong, but aren’t move semantics mostly to aid with smart pointers and move constructors an optimization to avoid copy constructors? Neither of which exist in c.

    I’m not sure what collection type you’re referring to, but most c programmers would probably agree that polymorphism isn’t a good thing.



  • jas0n@lemmy.worldtoProgrammer Humor@programming.devC++
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    5 months ago

    Preach brother, I don’t think that’s a hot take at all. I’ve become almost twice as productive since moving from c++ to c. I think I made the change when I was looking into virtual destructors and I was thinking, “at what point am I solving a problem the language is creating?” Another good example of this is move semantics. It’s only a solution to a problem the language invented.

    My hot take: The general fear of pointers needs to die.







  • jas0n@lemmy.worldtolinuxmemes@lemmy.worldThat's LTT in the bottom
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    8 months ago

    You’re just more familiar with windows. You likely grew up with it and depending on your age were taught it in school. You’re biggest gripe seems to be having to touch the terminal to install things, but to me, I think it’s weird to use a browser to install things. This is where that esoteric knowledge comes in… you know which download button is the real one that won’t download a virus.