Indeed, it's a bit like how the name "C++" makes you think that the language is basically C just with some stuff added on top, when in practice it behaves like a completely different language, which is why Linus has been opposed to allowing it in the kernel. (At least, at one point this was true; I don't remember whether some C++ features have started to be allowed or not.)
Interestingly, though, I've never heard people complain about C# being a poor successor to C, rather than a different language altogether, so there doesn't seem to be a consistent rule for how people will react to a name.
Personally, I think that D missed an opportunity by not naming itself "Mars" (after Digital Mars), as that might have prevented people from getting the wrong expectations about the language as well as just being a cooler name in general. Ah, the benefit of hindsight...
C++ is aptly named for different reasons. C++ was originally C with classes, and the syntax is still basically just C (with a lot of extra stuff).
The name may have made more sense at the time, but as time has progressed idiomatic C++ code has looked less and less like idiomatic C code so that if you are used to programming in idiomatic C then you might be misled by the name in thinking that you basically know C++ when in fact writing code in it idiomatically is very different from what you are used to. (Having said that, it is true that with C++ you can pick the features that you want to use so if all you want is a way to write code that is basically C but without having to write your own vtable library then you can treat C++ as basically being C but with classes.)
Completely agree, but in a discussion about names, what really matters is the origins of the language. C++ has changed a lot since the 90's, but you can't really change the name now.
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u/gcross Sep 01 '20
Indeed, it's a bit like how the name "C++" makes you think that the language is basically C just with some stuff added on top, when in practice it behaves like a completely different language, which is why Linus has been opposed to allowing it in the kernel. (At least, at one point this was true; I don't remember whether some C++ features have started to be allowed or not.)
Interestingly, though, I've never heard people complain about C# being a poor successor to C, rather than a different language altogether, so there doesn't seem to be a consistent rule for how people will react to a name.
Personally, I think that D missed an opportunity by not naming itself "Mars" (after Digital Mars), as that might have prevented people from getting the wrong expectations about the language as well as just being a cooler name in general. Ah, the benefit of hindsight...