Wed, 28 Jan 2009
C++ Woes
I wonder why even these days people start new open source projects in C++. C++ is - as far as I know - by far the least portable compiled language. I would understand using C++ in big proprietary projects, where everything including the compile-time environment is fixed. But for open source projects, where compiler versions, header file features, etc. vary greatly? No way.
The project I hate today is named IMMS. While trying to compile it I had to edit
11 different files, adding #includes all over the code. I wonder
how this could have been buildable anywhere at all - there were missing
prototypes/definitions for things like memcpy(),
INT_MAX, abs(), etc.
I cannot imagine how could it be possible at all for these symbols to end up defined in the author's build environment. The problem (one out of many) of C++ is that it is very strict about missing prototypes, but in turn it does nothing for preventing the namespace pollution, i.e. symbols being defined "accidentally", and thus the project being unbuildable elsewhere. I ran into the same problem a week or so ago when trying to compile a few months old version of Valknut.
Recommended reading: Linus' response to a question why Git is not written in C++. Morale: stay away from C++, or your projects will end up unbuildable after only few months.