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Stan Lippman On Version 2 Of Managed C++

Posted by timothy on from the onward-and-upward dept.

Lansdowne writes "Stan Lippman, one of the founding fathers of C++ and currently a language architect at Microsoft, has prepared an exhaustive translation guide, comparing old Managed C++ to the revised CLI/.NET version of C++. According to Lippman, "There are a number of significant weaknesses in the original language design (Version 1), which we feel are corrected in the revised language design (Version 2).""

3 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. I don't understand by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why can't they just change their compiler to generate managed code? Why do they need to change the syntax of C++ at all? In the open source project I work on we use the Boehm garbage collector for C++. So the number one reason to use managed code, automatic memory management, is already available to us. It would be nice if we could just recompile with some settings under VC++ and get a managed version to compare against Boehm. Of course, we'll need to be able to mix safe and unsafe code as our project is a little heavy on the bit manipulation side.

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    1. Re:I don't understand by Dr.+Sp0ng · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why can't they just change their compiler to generate managed code? Why do they need to change the syntax of C++ at all?

      Because running a program under the CLR is quite a bit different than running under a native CPU, and stock C++ doesn't really lend itself to the environment (for example, the CLR does not provide deterministic destructors). Rather than try to shoehorn C++ into a place it doesn't really fit, Microsoft did the right thing and extended the language in a way that makes it fit in with the other .NET languages.

      Plus, without new keywords, how would you specify which classes are garbage collected and which are manually managed? How would you specify class attributes? What about boxing/unboxing? The CLR is a very powerful environment, and I'd rather C++ have the ability to use this power.

  2. Re:founding fathers ? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I thought the founding fathers of C++ were Bjarne Stroustrup.

    Stroustrup is the original creator of C++, but several of the other big names were involved pretty much from the start, and a lot of them have worked together over the years. Stan Lippman is one such person.

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