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C++0x Finally Becomes a Standard
Samfer writes "On Friday August 12th 2011, the results for the final ISO ballot on C++0x came in, and the ISO C++ Standards Committee were unanimous in favor of approving the new C++0x (for now unofficially known as C++11) object-oriented programming language standard which is intended to replace the existing C++ standard. The new standard is to offer new and improved features such as lambda functions, concurrent programming functionality, direct data field initialization, and an improved standard library to name but a few."
Although I haven't heavily used C++ in years, it is nice to see a decade long effort finally come to fruition. Especially nice is the support for type inference which should save quite a few people from RSI and make refactoring code a bit less obnoxious.
Wrong thread dude, think you were looking for:
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/07/28/1758221/Oracle-Announces-Java-SE-7
It's nice that they finally got the standard done. But there's so much junk in there. The C++ committee was dominated by people who wanted to do cool things with templates.
Some years ago, someone figured out that it was possible to abuse the C++ template system into doing arbitrary computations at compile time. This developed a fan club. That fan club has dominated the C++ standards committee, because nobody else cared. So now we have a standard for C++ which supports template-based programming a little better.
Current thinking seems to be that,while template programming is too hard for ordinary programmers, the templates will be written by l33t programmers and then be used by the lower classes. Unfortunately, if anything goes wrong, the end user has to look at the innards of the template to find the problem. We went through this with LISP decades ago. Check out the MIT Loop Macro, That finally became stable about the time LISP died out.
Note what isn't in the new C++. There's no more memory safety than in the old one. (Fans will say that it's safer if you only use the new features. Now try to call some library that doesn't use them.) So the buffer overflow attacks and crashes will continue.
C++ is the only language to offer hiding without memory safety. Hard-compiled languages from Pascal through Go have hiding with safety, as do all the major scripting languages. C has neither hiding nor safety; the pointer manipulations are right there in the source. There have been safe, hard-compiled languages without garbage collection, most notably Ada and the Modula family. Safety and speed are not incompatible.
First DNF, then a HURD kernel, now C++0x... Remind me to send some parkas to hell.
- precise garbage collection (not that I'm missing it)
What is the matter with everyone wanting a garbage collector? Personally, I find smart pointers to be far superior to garbage collection and the new standard now incorporates them in the STL (strongly influenced by BOOST)! With them, the sole idea of garbage collection in C++ is somewhat useless and obsolete.
The x is a placeholder. C99 was C9x before it was standardised. The two digits specify the year (See: C89, Fortran77, and so on) in which the standard is finalised. This is the version of the standard that will be finalised some time between '00 and '09. In common with all other C++ projects, this one was completed late.
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Smaller and simpler seem to be a better way to go.
Nobody is stopping anyone from using plain old C, if that's what they want.
Of course, many people just end up re-inventing portions of C++ when they do that.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.