Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I use lots of C++. I also ignore major portions of it. I do not need all of it. There is nothing saying you have to use every bit of it. It is good to know all the bits though and understand how the tool can help you get things done. Take for example Visual Basic 6. Not exactly a 'bad' language. But it sure let lots of bad things to be created. That is because it was an easy lang to pick up and make a mess of. Being good at what you do takes time. There are no shortcuts. Blaming C++ is kind of a fad. Because like all languages terrible things can be done in it. It will not stop you from doing that. It expresses what you want. If you are not good at what you do you will express bad things. I have seen monsters made in pretty much every language at this point. None of them are 'good' at stopping you from making crap code.
Yes. Even Bjarne said (something like): "Inside C++ is a smaller, cleaner language trying to get out".
The trick is to learn what to use and what not to use.
The main problems C++ has are:
a) It's hard to learn C++ by hacking away at it. Some things are counter-intuitive, a good C++ mentor can save you years.
b) It's not a platform. Casual programmers don't want a "language", they want a platform.
The bottom line is this though: C++ allows you to precisely express anything you want to do. You never hit a brick wall like you do in other languages.
Also: Garbage collection is a red herring. Nobody manages RAM in C++ because C++ understands RAII like no other language. All the garbage collected languages handle RAM OK but RAM is only one type of resource. You end up explicitly closing files, etc., when you finish with them. In practice, GC actually creates more work for you compared to C++.
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Bjarne is right: there is a smaller, beautiful language within C++: it is called Rust. Mozilla has taken the best parts of C++ like its fast performance and its flexible abstractions and created the ultra-safe, ultra-productive and ultra-powerful modern programming language called Rust. While C++ will probably never go away, more and more C++ programmers are opting to use Rust instead because it is so much like C++, yet so much better at the same time.
The idea of programming as a semiskilled task, practiced by people with a few months' training, is dangerous. We wouldn't tolerate plumbers or accountants that poorly educated. We don't have as an aim that architecture (of buildings) and engineering (of bridges and trains) should become more accessible to people with progressively less training. Indeed, one serious problem is that currently, too many software developers are undereducated and undertrained. Obviously, we don't want our tools--including our programming languages--to be more complex than necessary. But one aim should be to make tools that will serve skilled professionals--not to lower the level of expressiveness to serve people who can hardly understand the problems, let alone express solutions. We can and do build tools that make simple tasks simple for more people, but let's not let most people loose on the infrastructure of our technical civilization or force the professionals to use only tools designed for amateurs.
- Bjarne S.
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That being said, if the semantics of a language tend to encourage people to write horrible code, does it make it a bad language? Good question. Discuss.
My first observation about C++ is that the best examples of clean, well-written code in C++ tend to use a very constrained subset of the language.
My next observation is that over the years many of the features added to C++ seem to be very obscure and seem to address odd corner cases. I suspect this is because of some deep design flaw in the language.
C++ tends to reward a programmer who can design clean, graceful interfaces that can successfully evolve over their lifetimes. And C++ mercilessly punishes programmers who cannot do that. Unfortunately, the vast majority of programmers cannot design clean, graceful interfaces. And very few programmers can do so all the time.
So yes, in my opinion if a language makes it too easy to write horrible code and very challenging to write great code it is probably a horrible language.
Linus Torvalds: