Hi, On Thu, Nov 05, 2009 at 06:42:25AM +0100, Bas Wijnen wrote: > On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 12:30:11AM +0100, [email protected] > wrote:
> > Organising things isn't hiding complexity. It's managing complexity > > at best. > > Whatever you like to call it. But with this definition, I don't think > I actually want to hide any complexity. In the end, I want to be in > control of everything, so it must still be there in a form that I can > change. My point is that IMHO C++ only limits flexibility, without really taking anything off my mind. I have to do all the same things most of the time, just writing them in a manner that makes it less obvious what is really happening. Higher-level languages are ones that free me from managing certain things by hand. > > In either case, the fact that few people are helping now, doesn't > > mean it wouldn't be even fewer if we used a less common language. > > While I can't actually prove it, common sense tells me it's pretty > > obvious. > > I feel that the people who want to help wouldn't be discouraged by > seeing a few new syntax features in code that otherwise looks like C. Well, for me at least, C++ *would* be a major turnoff, considering how ugly it is. (Again, I mostly mean syntax here, not even my fundamental dislike of the pseudo-OO.) However, I was thinking about actual higher-level languages here. It should be obvious by now that I don't consider C++ a useful option to muse about. > > However, I'm not talking about runtime features, nor explicit code > > generation. I'm talking about the type inference implemented by some > > languages (mostly functional ones), allowing the compiler to > > automatically instance any function for the types it is actually > > used on, > > But that's exactly what templates do (and what C is incapable of). Eh? While I'm not really familiar with templates (they didn't exist when I was learning C++), my understanding is that I have to write a template instead of a "normal" function, and then explicitely ask for specific functions being instanciated from this template for the types I need. This explicit template plus instanciation feels like a kludge to me, when it is perfectly possible (in other languages) for the compiler to figure out the necessary types on its own. -antrik-
