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Is C++ a 'Really Terrible Language'? (gamesindustry.biz)
Long-time Slashdot reader slack_justyb writes, "Jonathan Blow, an independent video game developer, indicated to gamesindustry.biz that while working on a recent project he stopped and considered how miserable programming can be. After some reflection Blow came to the realization as to why. [C++ is a] 'really terrible, terrible language.'"
The main flaw with C++, in Blow's opinion, is that it's a fiendishly complex and layered ecosystem that has becoming increasingly convoluted in its effort to solve different problems; the more layers, the higher the stack, the more wobbly it becomes, and the harder it is to understand.
"Blow is the developer of two games so far -- Braid and The Witness -- and developed a new programming language known as Jai in hopes to help C++ game developers become more productive."
With Jai, Blow hopes to achieve three things: improve the quality of life for the programmer because "we shouldn't be miserable like many of us are"; simplify the systems; and increase expressive power by allowing programmers to build a large amount of functionality with a small amount of code.
Long-time Slashdot reader xx_chris calls C++ "the triumph of syntax over clarity," while in the interview Blow calls C++ 'a weird mess.' But the original submission ends with these questions. "Is Blow correct? Has C++ become a horrific mess that we should ultimately relegate to the bins of COBOL and Pascal? Are there redeeming qualities of C++ that justify the tangle it has become?
"And is Jai a solution or just yet another programming language?"
The main flaw with C++, in Blow's opinion, is that it's a fiendishly complex and layered ecosystem that has becoming increasingly convoluted in its effort to solve different problems; the more layers, the higher the stack, the more wobbly it becomes, and the harder it is to understand.
"Blow is the developer of two games so far -- Braid and The Witness -- and developed a new programming language known as Jai in hopes to help C++ game developers become more productive."
With Jai, Blow hopes to achieve three things: improve the quality of life for the programmer because "we shouldn't be miserable like many of us are"; simplify the systems; and increase expressive power by allowing programmers to build a large amount of functionality with a small amount of code.
Long-time Slashdot reader xx_chris calls C++ "the triumph of syntax over clarity," while in the interview Blow calls C++ 'a weird mess.' But the original submission ends with these questions. "Is Blow correct? Has C++ become a horrific mess that we should ultimately relegate to the bins of COBOL and Pascal? Are there redeeming qualities of C++ that justify the tangle it has become?
"And is Jai a solution or just yet another programming language?"
Nope.
People who don't understand C++ are doomed to recreate it, badly.
No sig today...
Part of the challenge of using a language is not just knowing all of the things you *can* do. It is also knowing which things are best to avoid, and what the pitfalls are.
Doesn't happen much, but this time I'm going to have to agree with Anonymous Coward. All that will be accomplished by making programming languages easier is fostering the proliferation of even less qualified jackasses flooding the market with dangerously insecure and buggy code.
Disagree. It's more convoluted than C, but adapts C's very error-prone syntax. It's more complex than Basic, FORTRAN or COBOL. It doesn't have the simplicity of Pascal nor the consistency of Java or Ada.
It's definitely a 'science experiment that escaped from the lab.'
I've been programming for over 40 years (shudder..) and have always used C. Never seen a need for C++ for the sort of things that I do.
Perhaps it's because I don't do games and fancy graphics. I do things like counting pulses from water meters and getting coordinates from survey instruments.
You could get some really fancy graphics out of Amigas using C, though. :)
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
It's a worthy conceptual child of PL/1.
There is nothing saying you have to use every bit of it.
Other than the guy you inherited the codebase from.
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Saying it's better than Javascript isn't a ringing endorsement.
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Nope, C++ wasn't designed at all: it was accreted.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I hope you get modded way up! This is the fallacy of the "but only use a subset and you are good".
Real world programmers must maintain and modify code bases that have been written by people that no one currently at the company even knows.
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