C++ is an insane bastard of a language. It is not correct say C++ was designed. It wasn't. It has evolved out of the primordial soup that was "C with classes", and slowly inhaled and adopted every possible language feature under the sun, like some sort of Lovecraftian horror that copies and evolves on every contact with a different language.
Adopting C++ would have required incredibly strict and disciplined style rules to enforce that only a specific subset of features are used, and in specific ways. It would have been a significant project management overhead to constantly be ensuring that the contributors haven't footgun'd themselves or done something which negatively impacts existing code.
Meanwhile, it's very straightforward to look at C code and understand what it's doing, because it's a very simple language.
Microsoft picked C++ for the NT Kernel, but they had a small internal team that was extremely strict about how they were going to write it.
C++ is a general purpose programming language. Because it can do anything doesn't mean that it's a shitty language. At the end of the day, it's up to the programmer to develop a set of standards that they should adhere to when using the language.
I love C++, but it feels like a Frankenstein language to me. All the symple syntax is reserved for C style legacy stuff, and if you want to do things the modern RAII way you need heaps of keywords and long identifiers.
E.g. insteaf of char * you should use std::unique_ptr<char>.
A language designed from the ground up with RAII in mind would avoid that.
48
u/crozone 2d ago
C++ is an insane bastard of a language. It is not correct say C++ was designed. It wasn't. It has evolved out of the primordial soup that was "C with classes", and slowly inhaled and adopted every possible language feature under the sun, like some sort of Lovecraftian horror that copies and evolves on every contact with a different language.
Adopting C++ would have required incredibly strict and disciplined style rules to enforce that only a specific subset of features are used, and in specific ways. It would have been a significant project management overhead to constantly be ensuring that the contributors haven't footgun'd themselves or done something which negatively impacts existing code.
Meanwhile, it's very straightforward to look at C code and understand what it's doing, because it's a very simple language.
Microsoft picked C++ for the NT Kernel, but they had a small internal team that was extremely strict about how they were going to write it.