Demise of C++?

fashla writes "Several somber and soul searching threads have been recently posted to the USENET newsgroup comp.lang.c++ such as "C++ is Dead" and "A Dying Era". The reason for this reflective mood is the sudden demise of the magazine C/C++ Users Journal (CUJ) http://www.cuj.com/ that had been published by CMP Media. Participating in the posts have been such C++ luminaries such as Bjarne Stroustrup and P.J. Plauger. While some contributers think that CUJ's demise is due to the general trend away from print, others think something else is afoot..."

Comments

Re:Balkanization

[LLuthor]

In many cases, a good C++ compiler will produce better code if the C sources are C++ clean, due to the extra type-safety in C++ the compiler is safely allowed to make more assumptions leading to better optimized code.

Re:Balkanization

[YA_Python_dev]

    The above code uses V-tables

No, it doesn't (or at least shouldn't with a decent compiler).
I have compiled the following code:

    #include <iostream>

    int main() {
        std::cout << "Hello, World!" << std::endl;
        return 0;
    }

with G++ 3.3.1 on x86 (and pretty standard options: "-ansi -fomit-frame-pointer -O2") and the results for the "main" function where the following:

main:
.LFB1550:
        pushl   %ebp
.LCFI0:
        movl    %esp, %ebp
.LCFI1:
        pushl   %edx
        pushl   %edx
        andl    $-16, %esp
        pushl   %eax
        pushl   %eax
        pushl   $_ZSt4endlIcSt11char_traitsIcEERSt13basic_ostream IT_T0_ES6_
        subl    $12, %esp
        pushl   $.LC0
        pushl   $_ZSt4cout
.LCFI2:
        call    _ZStlsISt11char_traitsIcEERSt13basic_ostreamIcT_ES 5_PKc
        addl    $20, %esp
        pushl   %eax
.LCFI3:
        call    _ZNSolsEPFRSoS_E
        leave
        xorl    %eax, %eax
        ret

[".LC0" is the string "Hello World"; warning: /. inserts some spaces in the longest identifiers]
As you can see it's exactly what you can expect, with only two *direct* calls. Granted the "puts" version requires only a single call, but only because here the output is split in two parts, first the "Hello World" and then the newline.

Hope this helps the discussion.

Re:C/C++ dying? What are they smoking?

[mad.frog]

Dunno what you mean by "advanced software", but C has its place when programming near hardware. C++ will hopefully die and take buffer overflows and memory leaks with it.

BWA hahahahah

That's pretty funny, pointing out that C++ has buffer overflows and memory leaks when compared with C. Especially since C++ has vastly better techniques for dealing with those particular problems.

Ahem.

But seriously, there is absolutely no reason why properly-written C++ can't be precisely as efficient as straight C, and as an added bonus, you get a more strongly-typed language with extra features.

I've been writing in C and C++ for close to 20 years, and C++ is just plain a better language than C. Sure, it has some crazy warts and dangerous bits, and things that can be problematic if you don't know what you are doing... but I submit to you that if you don't know what you are doing, you need to find another line of work.

Sure, other languages are definitely better in some scenarios -- it's all about using the right tool for the job! -- but for "close to the machine" work, you need a language like C or C++, and frankly, I can't understand why anyone with sufficient programming experience, and a real working knowledge of both languages, would voluntarily choose plain C over C++.