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Probably because the number of VSS shops has dropped considerably.

Dean Roddey wrote:
++ - Why has the committee spent all this time creating a cathedral to container abstraction, while seemingly ignoring the fact that you can't write even a modest C++ program and remain within the standard? I.e. you have to throw in a bunch of third party bits and bobs, because there's been not much progress towards a reasonably full featured cross platform (even if some of it is only applicable on the mainstream) system. I think that the latter would do far more to allow C++ to compete against things like C# than the ability to remove every third odd numbered duplicate vector element.
[...]
At some point C++, if it's going to survive, is going to have to just cut off some of the past and move forward, IMO.

It seems to me that it is for reasons like this that C++ has probably had its day. C++ isn't going to go away totally of course but I think it will become less and less important over time.

What will replace C++ as a low level, high performance, cross platform language? Rust, Go, and maybe even D (D being in a relative niche).

I'm working towards open sourcing the general purpose half of my system. It's about a millions lines and the bottom half is a full, general purpose development environment, which doesn't use the STL or standard libraries at all. It's a whole world unto itself. Of course many people will use the standard no matter how unfortunate its circumstances, but I will be providing a powerful alternative. I'd hope to maybe build a community of disaffected C++'ers around it maybe.

I looked at Rust and it's so restrictive. You immediately start thinking of how hard many things you'd done in C++ would be to do in Rust.

Explorans limites defectum

Dean Roddey wrote:
I looked at Rust and it's so restrictive. You immediately start thinking of how hard many things you'd done in C++ would be to do in Rust.

Yes, indeed. But I think that Rust fans would say that that is a strength. Rust prevents you doing some of the (bad) things that you might have done in C++. I.e. It immediately eliminates whole classes of bugs (they say).

This article, Implications of Rewriting a Browser Component in Rust[^], which I saw earlier today attempts to illustrate this strength of Rust.

I came to Rust not from C++ but from (mostly) C# and it's even more of a culture-shock for me. As you say, the immediate reaction is "this is going to be much harder than I am used to". I realised that I would need to think about what I was doing very, very carefully to begin with -- at least until I really began to grok Rust's ways of memory management. Semantically Rust is very different to C#, even more different than C++ is to C#.

So I would not claim to be a Rust fan just yet but I think there is something in Rust fans' claims of better memory safety, especially in concurrent/asynchronous environments. Yes, it's harder (at least to begin with) but it should be worth it.

Or just use Go instead. Wink | ;-)

Of course the ultimate issue is that it's hard to picture another language becoming dominant at this point. Life it short and putting in the time to become really proficient in a new language that may not ever provide any career benefits is a hard call to make.

Of course the same could be said about continuing to dig into C++ as well I guess. The number of C++ jobs out there are dwindling, and if you are a Windows guy even more so.

Explorans limites defectum

markrlondon wrote:
What will replace C++ as a low level, high performance, cross platform language? Rust, Go, and maybe even D (D being in a relative niche).

No evidence of that.

TIOBE Index | TIOBE - The Software Quality Company[^]

Matter of fact from the historical perspective right now there is no replacement of anything going on. Pundits that are fiscally bound by some new language like to claim that their language is going to dominate but wouldn't want to put my money on one of those bets.

Time will tell. Smile | :)

Dean Roddey wrote:
GIT - After all these years, I can't be the first person who wants to manage multiple separate...

GIT is a poor tool for managing any enterprise business code base.
But to be fair it was specifically designed for the open source online projects.

With GIT in the enterprise you have the following choices.
1. Use one repo
2. Rigorously handle projects as independent deliverables.
3. Fumble around with adhoc attempts to manage multiple repos.
4. Find a different source control tool.

Dean Roddey wrote:
And, though having the intellisense stuff is very helpful, it can be incredibly intrusive and annoying sometimes.

Yep. In my case something keeps popping helpful hints right on top of the code that I am typing.
I would turn it off but sometimes I do rely on it.

Dean Roddey wrote:
And, it seems to want to force you to have all customizations be per-user.

In intellisense? I know you can customize VS and provide probably basically any functionality you want, so you could do that for a group. I believe that there is a way to customize intellisense for groups which is a bit easier than a full custom plugin. Not something I want to see given that people think they are "improving" code quality by adding trivial syntax checkers already. No reason to encourage them to do it adhoc.

Dean Roddey wrote:
C++ - Why has the committee spent all this time creating a cathedral to container abstraction, while seemingly ignoring the fact that you can't write even a modest C++ program and remain within the standard? I.e. you have to throw in a bunch of third party bits and bobs, because there's been not much progress towards a reasonably full featured cross platform (even if some of it is only applicable on the mainstream) system.

Huh? Every language uses 3rd party frameworks. I wouldn't work for a company that required I use only the language to build everything unless they wanted to pay me a lot of money and guarantee years of work before anything would go out the door. Even then I would probably just copy the open source stuff.

And that isn't new. There were 3rd party repositories for C and Fortran long ago. (Presumably still are but I don't work with those now.)

Dean Roddey wrote:
Similar to above, while ignoring fundamental things like enumerations, which suck in C++

Enumerations suck everywhere. The problem is that people want them to be more than just a integer numeric constant. That isn't the fault of the implementations however.

Dean Roddey wrote:
At some point C++, if it's going to survive, is going to have to just cut off some of the past and move forward

At some point if Cobol/Fortran/C is going to survive it is going to have to move forward.
Except they are.

And I am positive that I will be dead before the last Cobol/Fortran/C program is retired.
And it will be generations, if ever, before C++ is laid to rest.

Well, there's dead and there's dead. The job market for C++ is already really bad compared to other stuff. That's ultimately what matters, not how long code based on it sticks around.

On the third party thing, it's that they've just not addressed the issue of portable libraries that are part of most all practical applications. C# has a huge advantage here. If you hire a C# developer, he's going to have used a scheme for doing all those common things because it's a standard part of the language package. In C++ that's not the case.

BTW, I'm doing my part to try to alleviate this problem, though the specifics of it will probably mean it won't be attractive to most folks.

I've open sourced the general purpose half of my very extensive C++ code base[^]

Explorans limites defectum

Dean Roddey wrote:
The job market for C++ is already really bad compared to other stuff.

Evidence? Have you attempted to get a job in the embedded device space?

Following is what I use for a source.

TIOBE Index | TIOBE - The Software Quality Company[^]

Dean Roddey wrote:
On the third party thing, it's that they've just not addressed the issue of portable libraries that are part of most all practical applications

Who is "they"? C++? Yes they have. And they have done so for decades.

Dean Roddey wrote:
C# has a huge advantage here

Over C++? Perhaps. But in my experience Java has much more depth in competing solutions in the enterprise space.

Dean Roddey wrote:
n C++ that's not the case.

Been a long time since I did enterprise development in C++, but I will note that LNP (Local Number Portability) management was written in C++ and it definitely involved a wide array of technologies. And that was 20 years ago.

Most of us don't have experience in embedded work. That's a fairly specialized thing.

Explorans limites defectum

Doesn't mean that there is not a 'lot' of work however. Also, very definitely, doesn't mean it is going away either, so that work will continue.

Well, 'lot' is a relative term. C++'s piece of the pie seems to pretty clearly be on the downhill slide. I don't at all celebrate that since I have a HUGE vested interest in the language, aka my entire life. But the universe has made it clear by now that my interests aren't terribly important.

Explorans limites defectum

Did the geologist strata fight with his wife because it was his fault?

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all is well until until the schist hits the fan

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Of quartz, isn't it always like that?

"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle

Gives a whole new meaning to your Delirium Tremors - or was that just the shock after quake news?

Ravings en masse^
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010

And did he marry her because she was spathic?

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Sounds like a bit of a rocky relationship

cheers
Chris Maunder

did she Cave in at the end?

this is real Punnishment you know.

They just disagreed as to where to keep the plates.

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If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Loox kool. I wish I had more time!

"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"

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