C++20 (or even C++23 if you can find a compiler that supports it) is pretty great if you use smart pointers and concepts rather than malloc and raw templates. This is especially so if you enable all the useful warnings you can find and use a good IDE.
Sadly, most C++ software out there was written in the 2000s and needs to be compatible with the original author’s VAX machine running Linux 2.3, so using modern compilers often becomes a challenge.
Coming from other object oriented languages, C++ does have some weird quirks (like the way it deals with default initialisers) but none of that is impossible to learn. Sadly, it’s bogged down by decades of old, shitty C++ that it needs to support
I suppose you could use good linting tools to ban raw pointers and enforce move()s, but honestly, I would start any new C++ project in Rust instead. Rust has its issues (especially with C++ interop), but until Carbon is ready for production use, I think it’s the best way to handle C++.
It’s the amount of legacy it’s carrying on that drives me crazy. Many of the implicit default implementations are confusing. That’s where all these “rule of 3”, “rule of 7”, “rule of whatever” come from. The way arguments are passed into functions is another issue. From the call-side you (sometimes) cannot tell if you’ll end up with a moved value or a dangling reference. The compiler will not stop you from using it. Even if the compiler has something to tell you, it’ll do it on the most cryptic way possible. I’m grateful we have C++, it paid lots of my bills. But it’s also a pain in the ass.
The most recent C++ thing I worked on (not that recent, like 5 years or so ago) was a fairly new project and the people working on it were really passionate about C++. But it was C++ code that ran as a Python library and was using the official Python C bindings. Not sure why we didn’t use one of the unofficial C++ libraries, but the usage of that C library (and such a fundamental one) held things back. We wrote was was modern C++ (at the time), but big chunks would be a completely different style.
C++20 (or even C++23 if you can find a compiler that supports it) is pretty great if you use smart pointers and concepts rather than malloc and raw templates. This is especially so if you enable all the useful warnings you can find and use a good IDE.
Sadly, most C++ software out there was written in the 2000s and needs to be compatible with the original author’s VAX machine running Linux 2.3, so using modern compilers often becomes a challenge.
Coming from other object oriented languages, C++ does have some weird quirks (like the way it deals with default initialisers) but none of that is impossible to learn. Sadly, it’s bogged down by decades of old, shitty C++ that it needs to support
I suppose you could use good linting tools to ban raw pointers and enforce move()s, but honestly, I would start any new C++ project in Rust instead. Rust has its issues (especially with C++ interop), but until Carbon is ready for production use, I think it’s the best way to handle C++.
It’s the amount of legacy it’s carrying on that drives me crazy. Many of the implicit default implementations are confusing. That’s where all these “rule of 3”, “rule of 7”, “rule of whatever” come from. The way arguments are passed into functions is another issue. From the call-side you (sometimes) cannot tell if you’ll end up with a moved value or a dangling reference. The compiler will not stop you from using it. Even if the compiler has something to tell you, it’ll do it on the most cryptic way possible. I’m grateful we have C++, it paid lots of my bills. But it’s also a pain in the ass.
The most recent C++ thing I worked on (not that recent, like 5 years or so ago) was a fairly new project and the people working on it were really passionate about C++. But it was C++ code that ran as a Python library and was using the official Python C bindings. Not sure why we didn’t use one of the unofficial C++ libraries, but the usage of that C library (and such a fundamental one) held things back. We wrote was was modern C++ (at the time), but big chunks would be a completely different style.