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QuiEgo 4 days ago

Sending out a strong disagree from the embedded systems world. C is king here.

(Broad, general, YMMV statement): The general C++ arc for an embedded developer looks like this:

1.) discover exceptions are way too expensive in embedded. So is RTTI.

2.) So you turn them off and get a gimped set of C++ with no STL.

3.) Then you just go back to C.

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magnushiie 4 days ago | parent [-]

Skype was written without exception handling and RTTI, although using a lot of C++ features. You can write good C++ code without these dependencies. You don't use STL but with cautious use of hand-built classes you go far.

Today I wouldn't recommnend Skype built in any language except Rust. But the Skype founders Ahti Heinla, Jaan Tallinn and Priit Kasesalu found exactly the right balance of C and C++ for the time.

I also wrote a few lines of code in that dialect of C++ (no exceptions). And it didn't feel much different from modern C++ (exception are really fatal errors)

And regarding to embedded, the same codebase was embedded in literally all the ubiquitous TVs of the time, even DECT phones. I bet there are only a few (if any) application codebases of significant size to have been deployed at that scale.

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QuiEgo 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, you absolutely can use a limited set of C++, and find value, and there are many big projects that have gone that route.

See Embedded C++ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_C%2B%2B

Apple's IO Kit (all kernel drivers on macOS/iphoneOS/ipadOS/watchOS) is a great example of what you're talking about. Billions of devices deployed with code built on this pattern.

That said, in the embedded world, when you get down to little 32-bit or 16-bit microcontrollers, not amd64 or aarm64 systems with lots of RAM, pure C is very prevelant. Many people don't find much value from classes when they are writing bare-metal code that primarily is twiddling bits in registers, and they also can't or don't want to pay the overhead for things like vtables when they are very RAM constrained (e.x. 64kbyte of RAM is not that uncommon in embedded).

So, I disagree with the idea that "actual uses of C are esoteric" from the post - it's very prevelant in the embedded space still. Just want people to think about it from another use case :).

The classic example of a big pure-C project at scale is the Linux kernel.

Ask Linus what he thinks of C++. His opinions are his own (EDIT: I actually like C++ a lot, please don't come at me with pitchforks! :)), I merely repost for entertainment value (from a while back):

https://lwn.net/Articles/249460/

Maybe a simpler example: go find a BSP (board support package) for the mirco of your choice. It's almost certain that all of the example code will be in C, not C++. They may or may not support building with g++, but C is the lingua franca of embedded devs.

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