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

[Matthew Brush]

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.

> 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.

Cheers,
Matthew Brush