Boost is a very professional set of c++ libraries meant to extends the standard library. It contains a modified version of the Jam build system that works very well as a cross-platform Makefile alternative.
Check it out
Instead of having to spend 30 seconds remembering whether something is a structure, a pointer or whatever each time you just hit the same key.
If you have a pointer, you have to dereference it and then use the dot operator to call something. Arrow is simply a shortcut for dereference and call something. Yes, having a smart dot operator that does the right thing for a pointer helps you forget you have a pointer. This is NOT a good thing, however. The difference between a pointer and a stack object is more than just syntactic. They need to be handled differently in your code. Having the syntax the same makes it easier to forget the differences and your responsibilities as far as cleanup, etc...
My coworkers really like JBuilder and its GUI builder too. I've never been big on tools to create code for me. I get too annoyed with the code they generate and end up rewriting it anyway.
Emacs has so many features that I can't stand using a special purpose editor, anymore. Special purpose editors like JBuilder and MSVC want to do everything for you. By doing so, they lock you into their system. Requiring the installation of a particular non-portable editor to build code that otherwise would be is ridiculous, IMHO.
I agree with you in spirit. I really don't like the political system as it stands today. But what could, say, the slashdot readers do to make the drastic changes that need to be done to fix it. IMHO a few things we need are:
* More candidates
(people who actually stand for something) * Less corporate bribes * Swifter judicial system
(I don't know how though:( )
I don't think I am alone here. I think the slashdot community should flex its might in the political realm in an organized form. Since you seem to have faith in the people, what would you propose? Seriously.
Kazaa did something like this, IMHO. They installed spyware (I consider spyware a virus). The also took control of your processor to use it for who knows what. Good thing they went down. That was probably the most evil filesharing client I have seen.
With STL containers, there is really no justification for having any new's anywhere in a C++ program.
Huh? What about this?
class Vehicle {
virtual void drive() = 0;
};
How would I create a vector of Vehicle instances without calling new? I could use addresses of stack allocated objects but this is often impractical and error prone. More often than not, you need your object to persist longer than the function it was constructed in.
As much as we would all like to ignore the fact
that SUN controls Java, it doesn't change that. SUN is in fact, the biggest problem with Java. It is a legitemate complaint because they indeed control what you can and cannot do with the language, it's interaction with browsers, copyrights, etc.... My point is that the language cannot be easily separated from SUN's policies with it because SUN won't let it be separated. That just wouldn't be profitable. This is the reason languages controlled by large companies are disliked.
There are so many more problems with Java than just performance (although that is a big one) that I don't even know where to begin. Should I make an ?
Speed (yes, those JIT's still suck)
No multiple inheritance
People make the argument that multiple inheritance is "too complicated" and "confusing". I think this is a cop out and lack of experience with a good thing should not be validation that it is not a nice feature. When I try to use interfaces as the alternative it seems really hackish. I want this to be a Thread. Ooops. Sorry. I already have a superclass. Make it Runnable and construct a Thread with it... (ugh)
Templates
You think you can make more generic, flexible libraries with Java? Think again. Templates can do so much more and with TYPE SAFETY! It is too great for words. Just count how many times you have to cast in Java. This is a major design flaw.
Every other cool feature Java thought was too hard to use
Operator overloading, default parameters,... This kind of stuff just makes me get warm fuzzies inside. While not strictly necessary, it makes for better looking, cleaner code.
It doesn't have STL
STL is so much more a a superior library than the java.util Collections stuff it's not even funny. Java Iterators do one thing and only one. Go through the elements in a forward direction. STL iterators do so much more, and you don't even have to care if your using a pointer or a class to do it!
I could go on and on, but I've got work to do. Why don't you get your information straight before you start saying how much Java is better.
Here's what really happened. These norwegian agents with sunglasses and suites cam up to Taco and said:
As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time Mister Taco. In one life, you have a respectable computer discussion site. In the other you use unencrypted passwords and shoddy security measures...
One of these lives has a future, and the other does not... Give us the karma, and we will wipe the slate clean, and you can start a fresh slashdot.
Could this finally be Microsoft saying,
"Well folks. It's been a long profitable run. We've had our fun and our Monopolistic nasty tactics, but now people are starting to realize that we haven't been 'innovators'. We're the people who shove a crappy OS down your throat. Time to give in and let Linux dominate."
????
Hmmmm. Somehow I don't thinks so. Then it would really be time for Satan to put on his winter coat.
What? You did a Grep in Java through lots and lots of files? Did you do this just for the statistic or for some actual REAL work. If you did it for real work shame on you. This is perhaps one of the worst areas of performance with the JVM.
I used to like Java, before I became a real honest to goodness coder. My school focused on it so thats what I learned. When I started delving into C++, it was pure joy. Now I have higher requirements for the languages I will use. Some of these are genericicity, operator overloading, multiple inheritance (or a GOOD alternative (not Interfaces)), atleast descent speed, and no memory hogging VM, amongst other things.
Here are some arguments agains C# based on these precepts.
If C# does not have genericicity it will not be clean or typesafe as we have seen with something as simple as a Vector that has to use casting *everywhere* in Java. Stroustrup says if you have a lot of casting in you code it is a sign of a design flaw, meaning that the Java language itself is ONE BIG DESIGN FLAW. Looks like C# is heading in the same direction.
C# is created by Microsoft and Microsoft *standards* are even more of a joke than Sun Microsystems are (ie Visual Basic). Third party standards committees are essential for things as fundamental as a language, so that it can grow. If Microsoft is making all the decisions about their language, do you really want to trust them to alter/add to the language in a responsible way? How about hokey licensing restrictions like Sun's saying that you cannot use the JVM in a Nuclear power plant. What's up with that!? C# is destined for this same type of ludicrousy. The bottom line is that big companies rarely ever make software decisions that benefit the user. It's all about upgrading to the next version, and making the previous incompatible so you have to switch.
I could go on but I don't want to waste my time any more on another crappy Microsoft "innovation".
For all of the critics out there to proprietary software, I would have to say that there are not a lot of people with the time or money to do a project like Diablo open source. I sure haven't seen anything like it yet, atleast. Making money has always been the economies solution to providing incentives to create new and better products. Sure in a perfect world, all the software would be open source, but realistically, in order for such a grand project to come into fruition (4 CD's of pure hackfests!!), there has to be knowledge hiding to keep the hard work that software designer's have done from being stolen. If you don't like the product, don't buy it. But I think that the price you pay for the dynamite games that blizzard comes out with is well worth the cost.
I agree that garbage collection is a good thing for Object Oriented programming in general to implement, and a performance sacrifice would be one that most people would be willing to take, but doing it in the hardware? There are so many different non-standard algorithms for doing this such as simple pointer counting to much more complex solutions. I think it would be highly unlikely for this to be a solid solution to the problem of clean-up. For one, if you write c++ code that relies on this hardware, how would you port it to a computer without it? You'd basically have to implement the garbage collection anyway. How pointless is that?
A standard solution such as Java has done is a more practical solution because if they want to change how it is implemented you can get the latest JDK download rather than a new piece of hardware in the mail. I have a feeling I might never see it happen, but I would like to see a standard gc implementation in the C++ standard library too.
Ok, I know BJarne doesn't like comparisons but I think they are important in software decision making.
I used both C++ and Java regularly and I can say that both languages have definite advantages. On one hand, Java is a safer language to program in. It does not allow pointers, implicit booleans with ints, has garbage collection built in,...
These things being said, Java is a beast. In it's current state, I don't think any serious programmer is going to design a program that requires any sort of high performance execution in Java. C++, on the other hand, does efficiency very well. When used correctly, it can also be reliable, leaner, meaner, and trimmer than Java. The features that are dangerous were mostly inherited from C, and it was a realists design decision, rather than an OO purists. From reading BJarnes comments, I don't think he was after being "pure" anyway.
Another defense of C++ is templates, templates, templates. Everywhere in Java, you have all sorts of casting everywhere. To clone you have to cast, to get an element of a specific type out of a Vector you have to cast, etc... Aside from being just plain ugly, this also introduces more Runtime ClassCastExceptions that could be avoided. Another reason Java is more bloated looking is the lack of operator overloading. Here is a good example of Java code bloating.
Java: // define a Vector //... int i=((Integer)v.elementAt(1)).intValue(); C++: // define a vector //... int i=v[1];
These issues are way oversimplified, but these are some important ones. Overall I think the final decision to use one or the other depends on the project, and the coder. The project because some things such as system programming cannot be done in Java. The coder because the languages operate on different philosophies. Java's philosophy is that it doesn't trust the coder. Since other people have made mistakes with useful features in the past, it just got rid of them. C++ is feature rich, gives you a lot of options, and let's you break your own neck with them if you want to. Java gives you training wheels so that you can't do that. Once you mature as a coder, you won't need them as much, and you will start getting really annoyed with them when your doing the Iron Man.
Slashdot Mirror
Boost is a very professional set of c++ libraries meant to extends the standard library. It contains a modified version of the Jam build system that works very well as a cross-platform Makefile alternative. Check it out
If you want garbage collection in c++, you can have it.
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/
You should also use the shared_ptr in http://www.boost.org
Just because a feature is not built into the language doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means I have more choices, which I like a lot.
Instead of having to spend 30 seconds remembering whether something is a structure, a pointer or whatever each time you just hit the same key.
If you have a pointer, you have to dereference it and then use the dot operator to call something. Arrow is simply a shortcut for dereference and call something. Yes, having a smart dot operator that does the right thing for a pointer helps you forget you have a pointer. This is NOT a good thing, however. The difference between a pointer and a stack object is more than just syntactic. They need to be handled differently in your code. Having the syntax the same makes it easier to forget the differences and your responsibilities as far as cleanup, etc...
My coworkers really like JBuilder and its GUI builder too. I've never been big on tools to create code for me. I get too annoyed with the code they generate and end up rewriting it anyway.
Emacs has so many features that I can't stand using a special purpose editor, anymore. Special purpose editors like JBuilder and MSVC want to do everything for you. By doing so, they lock you into their system. Requiring the installation of a particular non-portable editor to build code that otherwise would be is ridiculous, IMHO.
I agree with you in spirit. I really don't like the political system as it stands today. But what could, say, the slashdot readers do to make the drastic changes that need to be done to fix it. IMHO a few things we need are:
:( )
* More candidates
(people who actually stand for something)
* Less corporate bribes
* Swifter judicial system
(I don't know how though
I don't think I am alone here. I think the slashdot community should flex its might in the political realm in an organized form. Since you seem to have faith in the people, what would you propose? Seriously.
1 Word
eDonkey
Hey look on the bright side. At least the polls aren't reposted, right?
Kazaa did something like this, IMHO. They installed spyware (I consider spyware a virus). The also took control of your processor to use it for who knows what. Good thing they went down. That was probably the most evil filesharing client I have seen.
With STL containers, there is really no justification for having any new's anywhere in a C++ program.
Huh? What about this?
class Vehicle {
virtual void drive() = 0;
};
How would I create a vector of Vehicle instances without calling new? I could use addresses of stack allocated objects but this is often impractical and error prone. More often than not, you need your object to persist longer than the function it was constructed in.
This is (patently) ridiculous. It's more absurd than that Java OS that I heard about a while back.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and ... disagree with you there.
To get the fastest mozilla ever send all output (stderr and stdout) directly to /dev/null. All that crap it spits out really slows it down.
As much as we would all like to ignore the fact that SUN controls Java, it doesn't change that. SUN is in fact, the biggest problem with Java. It is a legitemate complaint because they indeed control what you can and cannot do with the language, it's interaction with browsers, copyrights, etc.... My point is that the language cannot be easily separated from SUN's policies with it because SUN won't let it be separated. That just wouldn't be profitable. This is the reason languages controlled by large companies are disliked.
?- Speed (yes, those JIT's still suck)
- No multiple inheritance
- Templates
- Every other cool feature Java thought was too hard to use
- It doesn't have STL
People make the argument that multiple inheritance is "too complicated" and "confusing". I think this is a cop out and lack of experience with a good thing should not be validation that it is not a nice feature. When I try to use interfaces as the alternative it seems really hackish. I want this to be a Thread. Ooops. Sorry. I already have a superclass. Make it Runnable and construct a Thread with it... (ugh)
You think you can make more generic, flexible libraries with Java? Think again. Templates can do so much more and with TYPE SAFETY! It is too great for words. Just count how many times you have to cast in Java. This is a major design flaw.
Operator overloading, default parameters,... This kind of stuff just makes me get warm fuzzies inside. While not strictly necessary, it makes for better looking, cleaner code.
STL is so much more a a superior library than the java.util Collections stuff it's not even funny. Java Iterators do one thing and only one. Go through the elements in a forward direction. STL iterators do so much more, and you don't even have to care if your using a pointer or a class to do it!
I could go on and on, but I've got work to do. Why don't you get your information straight before you start saying how much Java is better.
What does Hawking know about the environment anyway. I thought he was a Gansta Rapper!
As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time Mister Taco. In one life, you have a respectable computer discussion site. In the other you use unencrypted passwords and shoddy security measures...
One of these lives has a future, and the other does not... Give us the karma, and we will wipe the slate clean, and you can start a fresh slashdot.
Could this finally be Microsoft saying, "Well folks. It's been a long profitable run. We've had our fun and our Monopolistic nasty tactics, but now people are starting to realize that we haven't been 'innovators'. We're the people who shove a crappy OS down your throat. Time to give in and let Linux dominate." ???? Hmmmm. Somehow I don't thinks so. Then it would really be time for Satan to put on his winter coat.
Binary is dead. Given the current buzzwordiness of XML, we need a human readable XML based audio format like so.
<beep>
<frequency>50hz</frequency>
</beep>
<guitar>
<style>bass</style>
<note>high C</note>
</guitar>
...
What? You did a Grep in Java through lots and lots of files? Did you do this just for the statistic or for some actual REAL work. If you did it for real work shame on you. This is perhaps one of the worst areas of performance with the JVM.
I used to like Java, before I became a real honest to goodness coder. My school focused on it so thats what I learned. When I started delving into C++, it was pure joy. Now I have higher requirements for the languages I will use. Some of these are genericicity, operator overloading, multiple inheritance (or a GOOD alternative (not Interfaces)), atleast descent speed, and no memory hogging VM, amongst other things.
Here are some arguments agains C# based on these precepts.
If C# does not have genericicity it will not be clean or typesafe as we have seen with something as simple as a Vector that has to use casting *everywhere* in Java. Stroustrup says if you have a lot of casting in you code it is a sign of a design flaw, meaning that the Java language itself is ONE BIG DESIGN FLAW. Looks like C# is heading in the same direction.
C# is created by Microsoft and Microsoft *standards* are even more of a joke than Sun Microsystems are (ie Visual Basic). Third party standards committees are essential for things as fundamental as a language, so that it can grow. If Microsoft is making all the decisions about their language, do you really want to trust them to alter/add to the language in a responsible way? How about hokey licensing restrictions like Sun's saying that you cannot use the JVM in a Nuclear power plant. What's up with that!? C# is destined for this same type of ludicrousy. The bottom line is that big companies rarely ever make software decisions that benefit the user. It's all about upgrading to the next version, and making the previous incompatible so you have to switch.
I could go on but I don't want to waste my time any more on another crappy Microsoft "innovation".
For all of the critics out there to proprietary software, I would have to say that there are not a lot of people with the time or money to do a project like Diablo open source. I sure haven't seen anything like it yet, atleast. Making money has always been the economies solution to providing incentives to create new and better products. Sure in a perfect world, all the software would be open source, but realistically, in order for such a grand project to come into fruition (4 CD's of pure hackfests!!), there has to be knowledge hiding to keep the hard work that software designer's have done from being stolen. If you don't like the product, don't buy it. But I think that the price you pay for the dynamite games that blizzard comes out with is well worth the cost.
I agree that garbage collection is a good thing for Object Oriented programming in general to implement, and a performance sacrifice would be one that most people would be willing to take, but doing it in the hardware? There are so many different non-standard algorithms for doing this such as simple pointer counting to much more complex solutions. I think it would be highly unlikely for this to be a solid solution to the problem of clean-up. For one, if you write c++ code that relies on this hardware, how would you port it to a computer without it? You'd basically have to implement the garbage collection anyway. How pointless is that?
A standard solution such as Java has done is a more practical solution because if they want to change how it is implemented you can get the latest JDK download rather than a new piece of hardware in the mail. I have a feeling I might never see it happen, but I would like to see a standard gc implementation in the C++ standard library too.
I used both C++ and Java regularly and I can say that both languages have definite advantages. On one hand, Java is a safer language to program in. It does not allow pointers, implicit booleans with ints, has garbage collection built in, ...
These things being said, Java is a beast. In it's current state, I don't think any serious programmer is going to design a program that requires any sort of high performance execution in Java. C++, on the other hand, does efficiency very well. When used correctly, it can also be reliable, leaner, meaner, and trimmer than Java. The features that are dangerous were mostly inherited from C, and it was a realists design decision, rather than an OO purists. From reading BJarnes comments, I don't think he was after being "pure" anyway.
Another defense of C++ is templates, templates, templates. Everywhere in Java, you have all sorts of casting everywhere. To clone you have to cast, to get an element of a specific type out of a Vector you have to cast, etc... Aside from being just plain ugly, this also introduces more Runtime ClassCastExceptions that could be avoided. Another reason Java is more bloated looking is the lack of operator overloading. Here is a good example of Java code bloating.
Java:
// define a Vector
//
int i=((Integer)v.elementAt(1)).intValue();
C++:
// define a vector
//
int i=v[1];
These issues are way oversimplified, but these are some important ones. Overall I think the final decision to use one or the other depends on the project, and the coder. The project because some things such as system programming cannot be done in Java. The coder because the languages operate on different philosophies. Java's philosophy is that it doesn't trust the coder. Since other people have made mistakes with useful features in the past, it just got rid of them. C++ is feature rich, gives you a lot of options, and let's you break your own neck with them if you want to. Java gives you training wheels so that you can't do that. Once you mature as a coder, you won't need them as much, and you will start getting really annoyed with them when your doing the Iron Man.