Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 09:48:27 -0500 From: "Rick C. Petty" <rick-freebsd@kiwi-computer.com> To: pfgshield-freebsd@yahoo.com Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: kern/99979: Get Ready for Kernel Module in C++ Message-ID: <20060712144827.GA99296@megan.kiwi-computer.com> In-Reply-To: <20060712141029.35239.qmail@web32707.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060712090019.GA723@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <20060712141029.35239.qmail@web32707.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, Jul 12, 2006 at 04:10:29PM +0200, pfgshield-freebsd@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> C++ is the de-facto standard for OO
That is just sad. So many other languages do a much better job of
implementing OO (Smalltalk, Java, Python, even Scheme). While we're at
it, why not implement a bytecode interpreter for all of these languages
into the kernel? That would be sweet..
I'm being facetious here; OO has some merit but aside from that, there's
very little utility an additional language can provide. Granted, it's
easier (read: lazier) to use:
try {
...
}
catch (...)
...
than it is to do:
error = some_fn_which_could_error();
if (error)
return error;
...
While I haven't looked at kobj, I have seen some good implementations of OO
in plain C (GTK's gobject comes to mind). I believe at least basic OO
framework is available and doesn't require a huge performance hit, as
undoubtedly a C++ solution would provide (at least from my experience).
For all C++ gives you, I believe the potential is there to do the same
things in C.
I'm all for making kernel code free of C++ reserved words (although I'd
recommend changing "new" to "new_obj", etc. instead of "_new" or similar).
This would allow C++ developers to write drivers and such. But I don't
feel there is any benefit to commit C++ code into the "pristine" kernel
source. Also, I thought the C++ "standard" was still being argued about
and thus is incomplete?? (I certainly know there are C-isms which don't
appear in any C++ standard as of yet) Not to pick on the gcc/g++ folks,
but it's difficult to find a decent C++ compiler which implements all/most
of the language standard and also reliably compiles/cross-compiles on
various systems. OTOH, gcc does an excellent job!
For this reason, BSD shouldn't bend over backwards for C++ developers any
more than it should for Python or Ruby developers. The implied stability
and consistency of a finished language is exactly what is needed for a
stable and consistent OS (kernel). Pick a language (let's call it "C")
that isn't likely to evolve any further. Oh wait, we already did :-P
-- Rick C. Petty
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20060712144827.GA99296>