Re: [fluid-dev] Adding C++ as mandatory dependency?

[Dan Eble]

On Jan 21, 2020, at 13:50, Carlo Bramini via fluid-dev <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> From my experience, C++ is not a good idea sometimes, especially when you 
> want to maximize the performance and minimize the memory usage.

Please don't take offense at this, but demonstrating that it is possible to 
write a poorly performing program in some language is not the same as 
demonstrating that programming in that language is a bad idea.  Even granting 
that a hot spot in a C++ program might be well addressed by a tailored 
solution, that does not support avoiding C++ in your entire program.

I can provide a counterexample from my own experience.  I worked for 8 years in 
a company whose main product performed line-rate deep packet inspection and 
modification in C++.  High availability, high performance, and controlled 
memory use were all high priorities, and they were achieved—with diligence, but 
not with great difficulty.  And the developers avoided several classes of bugs 
that are common in C programs, by contextually appropriate use of features like 
references instead of pointers, the class system with its ability to restrict 
operations performed on an object, and RAII techniques (e.g. smart pointers) 
instead of the old "goto fail and try not to overlook releasing anything" 
approach.

"C++ is inefficient" and similar statements can also be straw men posed by 
those who feel that they would be impolite or lose face by saying, "I'm just 
not interested in investing my spare time in C++ programming."  I don't know 
anyone here remotely well enough to claim that that is the case here, but there 
are such people in the world.

Regards,
— 
Dan