Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2024 08:25:13 +0000 From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> To: David Chisnall <theraven@freebsd.org> Cc: Alan Somers <asomers@freebsd.org>, Dmitry Salychev <dsl@freebsd.org>, Jan Knepper <jan@digitaldaemon.com>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The Case for Rust (in any system) Message-ID: <202409060825.4868PDWO042319@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: <4E4FB8CC-A974-42C4-95D5-2E1E4BF681AD@freebsd.org> References: <202409060725.4867P3ul040678@critter.freebsd.dk> <4E4FB8CC-A974-42C4-95D5-2E1E4BF681AD@freebsd.org>
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David Chisnall writes:
> On 6 Sep 2024, at 08:25, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
> >
> > I will also note that almost all the blame for C's current status
> > lies with the standardization efforts, which almost seem hell-bent
> > on destroying the language rather than improving it.
>
> As someone who is involved with C++ standardisation and so periodically =
hears
> things from WG14, my impression is that the people who care about the th=
ings
> that you list have all moved to C++, [=E2=80=A6]
I've heard that from other sources too, strangely also from somebody
quite active in the C standardization process, but no sane (to my
mind) rationale was provided for this state of things.
The C-stewardship situation has become increasingly intolerable to
me, and I have practically already made up my mind, that Varnish
Cache will migrate to a defined subset of C++, roughly corresponding
to where I think C should have been by now.
In one experiment, I wrapped the C-code in:
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
and compiled it with a C++ compiler.
Given that we have tried to dial code quality to 11 in Varnish, the
number of relevant observations by the C++ compiler was a devastating
indictment of how badly the C language has been let down by it's
stewards.
I'm not saying FreeBSD should think along the same lines, but FreeBSD
should totally think along those same lines:
Even if we stick with pure C-code, the C++ std-people have a much
more sane approach to it's proper compilation that the C std-people.
And there are nice features in C++ which do not make the source code
unreadable.
Poul-Henning
-- =
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe =
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence=
.
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