[Geany-Devel] Let's move to C++98 - Re: Lets move to C99

[Nick Treleaven]

On 05/09/2013 10:48, Matthew Brush wrote:
> On 13-09-05 02:26 AM, Nick Treleaven wrote:
>> On 01/09/2013 02:36, Matthew Brush wrote:
>>> On 13-08-29 05:08 AM, Nick Treleaven wrote:
>>>> On 29/08/2013 02:39, Matthew Brush wrote:
>>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> If we were to use C++, I think it'd be pointless to limit it to
>>>>> CFront/CwithClasses-style 1980's C++. We should use common/standard
>>>>> stuff like standard library containers, inheritance (maybe not
>>>>> multipl-inheritance), the class keyword, templates (where it makes
>>>>> sense), exceptions, etc. The issues/limits being discussed in this
>>>>> thread are issues long since considered "resolved" or "non-issues"
>>>>> for a
>>>>> long time for desktop software (and since a *long* time even before
>>>>> Geany's first line of code was written :). The style of code I read on
>>>>> the net and in talks and books and stuff is modern (ie. >= C++98)
>>>>> style
>>>>> C++ and I'd expect that's what the bulk of C++-using contributors
>>>>> would
>>>>> be used to using.
>>>>
>>>> Idiomatic C++ takes a *lot* of learning and experience to get right for
>>>> someone coming from C.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Do you think there's more C-only programmers out there contributing to
>>> desktop application projects than C++ programmers? I honestly don't know
>>> but my instinct says there isn't.
>>
>> If you mean open source projects, then yes. Somewhat difficult to
>> measure, but some (possibly flawed) stats:
>>
>> Here C has at least twice the share of C++:
>> http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/
>>
>> In terms of noise on the web, here C also has approaching twice that of
>> C++:
>> http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
>>
>
> It would be better (but even harder to measure) to compare desktop
> applications, as I mentioned, like Geany since this is an area where C++
> makes a lot of more sense compared to C, and there's a lot of excellent
> C++ GUI toolkits like Qt, WxWidgets, FLTK, FOX, GTKmm, WTL, etc.
> Compared to C, where GTK+ is about the only actually good toolkit I've
> ever come across.

You don't need to be a GUI programmer to make good contributions to Geany.

>> Also even if there were more C++ programmers, it would still be much
>> easier for a C++ programmer to write C than vice versa.
>>
>
> Yeah maybe, although if you learned C++ first, using C is fairly foreign
> and weird I'm sure. Also all of the other languages that support
> modern/more programming paradigms would probably make an easier
> transition to C++ than C.

The STL is almost unique. Only D has something similar. Also C++-style 
RAII is not commonly found in popular languages.