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Celebrating 30th Anniversary of the First C++ Compiler: Let's Find Bugs In It
New submitter Andrey_Karpov writes: Cfront is a C++ compiler which came into existence in 1983 and was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup ("30 YEARS OF C++"). At that time it was known as "C with Classes". Cfront had a complete parser, symbol tables, and built a tree for each class, function, etc. Cfront was based on CPre. Cfront defined the language until circa 1990. Many of the obscure corner cases in C++ are related to the Cfront implementation limitations. The reason is that Cfront performed translation from C++ to C. In short, Cfront is a sacred artifact for a C++ programmer. So I just couldn't help checking such a project [for bugs].
If you know what you're doing, you probably are already using another language.
Such as? I doubt that there's anyone not relying on C++. Never mind that every major browser (and a few minor ones) are written in C++. Many language implementations are in C++. And for those that are in C, well, all the major C compilers (LLVM, VisualStudio and now GCC of course) are written in C++.
Personally, I like the language. Oh I can whine about it all day and it has many warts, but the combination of efficiency, expressiveness, flexibility and static typing fit well with me.
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Before C++ came around, wasn't C just a glorified macro assembler?
Not exactly. It was intended to be an actual compiled language but one with as little overhead as possible and the ability to touch the hardware easily. It's considered a "middle level language". Where low level languages would be various assemblers and what not. High level languages (i.e. most other compiled language) deliberately abstract away the low level functionality to make writing applications easier. C was designed specifically as an in-house tool at Bell Labs for rewriting Unix and escaped sometime in the late 60's/early 70's. It was and always will be a compiled language, albeit one with only a very small base of core functionality.
When they wrote it, Kernighan and Ritchie discarded most of the overhead that came with other languages. The linking of pointers to arrays and array arithmetic simplified the compiling while providing the bare minimum of array functionality. The lack of pretty much any built in functions made the language simple and compact. Putting all that functionality in libraries means you only needed to include just the pieces you used. And if you didn't need something, the language didn't force you to link it in. The language gave you just the few pieces that were absolutely necessary and you were responsible for the rest. The standard libraries that evolved after that are what gave C the ability to be a general purpose language.
C is a great language for writing small, tight, efficient, low level programs as long as you know what you're doing and are willing to work with just a few small, sharp tools. It still has it's place in embedded systems and for writing operating systems (or at least the kernel). Beyond that, it's really quite limited. But no, it's not just a macro assembler. It is more than that.
You do realize there are no "memory management issues" in modern C++, right? Java abstracts away the memory management issues of C, and of C++ written like C.
The advantage of Java and C# is the easier learning curve. C++ can be bizarre and arcane, while the managed languages are simpler to get right, and so you can far more easily hire programmers who won't screw everything up.
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Nope, C++ is still a thing when you need to create really large, complex programs, and when efficiency still really matters. Here in the videogame industry, C++ absolutely reigns supreme. Nothing else even comes close. Large applications like MS Office are still written in C++, from what I'm told, as are *many* large applications. It's not just legacy stuff either.
C++ has the native performance of C, but is able to use powerful zero-cost abstractions that allow programs to scale up safely. For instance, if you write modern C++, it's almost impossible to write code that will stomp on random memory or leak resources, a real issue with C or older style C++ programs, yet that protection is completely optimized away and costs *nothing* at run-time (which I think is something many programmers don't properly appreciate).
An easy language to master? Absolutely not. It's a language that takes a long time to learn well, and it can be rather unforgiving at times, but it's great for what it does. C++ 11/14 has also really breathed new life into things as well, IMO. It's really amazing how much the language feels almost like it's using managed memory (e.g. garbage collection) now that I'm using smart pointers ubiquitously.
C++ is incredibly portable as well. My game engine works across several platforms, only a smallish percentage of the code is different between platforms, mostly for low-level graphics, audio, windowing, or other system calls.
It's stability as a language is legendary as well, and that's important for real-world projects that depend on it. You can probably still compile most the earliest C++ code on a modern compiler and expect it to still work, not to mention most C code as well.
I'd never claim C++ is the end-all, be-all of languages (I sound like I'm gushing, but I have plenty of complaints as well), but it most assuredly has a very long future with us, and for some very good reasons.
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Way back when, there were lots of different architectures, and they had their own C-level languages (CDC system programmers used Cybol, for example). C is the one that survived, because it was the language of Unix, and Unix caught on. It's multiplatform because Unix is. That gave it staying power. Nobody uses Cybol anymore, because it was tied to an architecture that just died.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes