Re: [boost] C++ announcements coming tomorrow

Subject: Re: [boost] C++ announcements coming tomorrow
From: Paul Mensonides (pmenso57_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-11-05 01:13:51

On 11/4/2012 6:19 PM, Edward Diener wrote:

> C++/CLI does not pretend to be C++. It is a dialect of C++ for .Net
> programming but nobody of any experience views this as the official C++
> language.
>
> Your rant against things like C++/CLI and C++/CX is ill-founded IMO.
> Language vendors certainly have the right to create a new language from
> an existing language for their own use and their customer's use. I think
> you are being intolerant to think otherwise. If Microsoft has said
> anywhere that C++/CLI or C++/CX is standard C++ I would like to see it.

Sure they have the right to do it.  That doesn't make it good design, 
that doesn't make the way they go about it ethical, and that doesn't 
make it good for C++ as a whole.  Regardless, as I've said, I wouldn't 
have nearly the vitriol toward MS if they actually implemented the 
language.  No marketing, no "subtle" maneuvering, just implement the 
language.  They go on and on, especially in the last year or two, about 
the "C++ renaissance" and their commitment to C++, but then they develop 
yet another set of their own extensions instead of C++.

> There are probably few serious C++ expert programmers who do not agree
> with you that language vendors should support the C++ standard. But that
> is very different from mandating that language vendors should only be
> allowed to support a language standard and not be allowed to create
> another similar language for their own purposes.

I'm not advocating mandating anything.  Microsoft should either say they 
support C++ and then actually do it by implementing the language 
(completely--no "won't fix"), or they should say that they don't support 
C++ and step aside--developing whatever C-flat that they want.

> Actually C++/CLI is a very good language for .Net programming but
> Microsoft's support for it has been abysmal, so that it is hopeless to
> use it ( as opposed to C# ) for any serious largescale .Net programs or
> modules.

This has nothing to do with C++, but there is no such thing as a good 
language for .Net programming.  It isn't a good runtime model.  Take 
away the .Net Framework (which is bloatware anyway--std::string x 1000) 
and what do you have?  You have a fairly generic ho-hum language that 
bubbles implementation detail (in the form of any type of non-memory 
resource management).  Now implement the .Net Framework, bloatware and 
all if you like, as a C++ API, and you have everything that C# actually 
offers sans reflection--which is frequently overused to paper over poor 
design.  The point is, of course, that C# strength is *not* its 
language, but rather its extensive library--however poorly implemented.

I look at that and say, "Why isn't that easily available in C++?"  The 
answer, IMO, is largely because libraries target *compilers* rather than 
C++.  Regardless of what gets added to the standard library, it will 
*never* be enough.  What's needed is for compiler vendors to approximate 
the language to the greatest degree possible such that the standard acts 
as a contract between compiler authors and compiler vendors.  That is 
priority one for C++ to move forward.  More libraries in the standard 
library is good, but unnecessary.  There is only one thing that is 
really necessary.

Regards,
Paul Mensonides