Subject: Re: US White House urges devs

On 28 Feb 2024, Nightfox said the following...

I saw this article today:
https://shorturl.at/KMZ07

Full URL: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3713203/white-house-urges-developers-to- c-and-c.html

When the white house gives advisories like this, that's when you pause. What they should be doing is promoting good practice and education on how to avoid such issues. After all, mainstream applications and OS's are still written in those languages.

Exercising may lead to injury and you don't want that, so we promote doing other things instead.

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Re: Re: US White House urges
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Wed Apr 10 2024 11:05 am

https://shorturl.at/KMZ07

When the white house gives advisories like this, that's when you pause. What they should be doing is promoting good practice and education on how to avoid such issues. After all, mainstream applications and OS's are still written in those languages.

I was thinking that too. Though I imagine they (hopefully) talked to some software people to get some expert opinions about it. Also, I've seen other developrs say basically the same thing, that C and C++ are prone to bugs due to human error (buffer overruns, dynamic memory allocation without de-allocation, etc.) that can make the software prone to crashes and possibly exploits from malware - and they say some newer langauges have mechanisms to try to minimize or prevent these kinds of bugs and issues.

Nightfox

On 11 Apr 2024, Nightfox said the following...

Re: Re: US White House urges
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Wed Apr 10 2024 11:05 am

https://shorturl.at/KMZ07

When the white house gives advisories like this, that's when you paus What they should be doing is promoting good practice and education on to avoid such issues. After all, mainstream applications and OS's are still written in those languages.

I was thinking that too. Though I imagine they (hopefully) talked to
some software people to get some expert opinions about it. Also, I've seen other developrs say basically the same thing, that C and C++ are prone to bugs due to human error (buffer overruns, dynamic memory allocation without de-allocation, etc.) that can make the software prone to crashes and possibly exploits from malware - and they say some newer langauges have mechanisms to try to minimize or prevent these kinds of bugs and issues.

Nightfox
---
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It's not a new sentiment. People have been saying this for years. I like to stick with old standards that have stood the test of time. I can't count how many new languages have popped up the last decade... Almost none of them will be remembered. C++ is a very robust language, and the trade-off is complexity.

calcmandan

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Re: Re: US White House urges
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Fri Apr 12 2024 03:47 am

It's not a new sentiment. People have been saying this for years. I like to stick with old standards that have stood the test of time. I can't count how many new languages have popped up the last decade... Almost none of them will be remembered. C++ is a very robust language, and the trade-off is complexity.

I like C++ too, but as someone who works in the industry, it seems like you can't stick to older things for too long. There are many teams who have moved to other languages in place of C++ and have been doing so for a long time. For desktop software on Windows, where C++ used to often be used, it seems to me that C# is often a preferred language now. Also, while not C++, the Linux kernel has historically been written in C, but recently I've heard they've been starting to code with Rust for the Linux kernel. I still see some software developer jobs with C++ and C, but not a whole lot these days.

Nightfox

On 12 Apr 2024, Nightfox said the following...

Re: Re: US White House urges
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Fri Apr 12 2024 03:47 am

It's not a new sentiment. People have been saying this for years. I l to stick with old standards that have stood the test of time. I can't count how many new languages have popped up the last decade... Almost of them will be remembered. C++ is a very robust language, and the trade-off is complexity.

I like C++ too, but as someone who works in the industry, it seems like you can't stick to older things for too long. There are many teams who have moved to other languages in place of C++ and have been doing so for
a long time. For desktop software on Windows, where C++ used to often
be used, it seems to me that C# is often a preferred language now.
Also, while not C++, the Linux kernel has historically been written in
C, but recently I've heard they've been starting to code with Rust for
the Linux kernel. I still see some software developer jobs with C++ and C, but not a whole lot these days.

Valid points. It's agreed that things will go away over time and I'm sure a day will come where C++ no longer has offerings on college campuses. And while it is quite true that the adoption of other languages have been increasing over the years, the symptom of it is that the relevant institutions had the choice in doing so. The government didn't mandate it, unless it were listed as a requirement on a contract somewhere, but that's neither here nor there.

Of course, as new technologies come into the field, they may have demands that require the utility of other development platforms. I don't know if it will ever be possible or appropriate to develop a website with C++. It simply cannot fulfill the context which HTML and other web languages provide. Now would browsers understand it even if tried.

My problem is that the government wants to step in and provide guidance - as if it's suddenly an arbiter of good industry practice. The industry will decide on its own what it should and shouldn't utilize, as you've stated.

I'd be interested in seeing what the C++ consortium does for later revisions to adapt and maintain relevance.

C++ is like radio - a tried and true technology that will never, truly, go away.

On another note, I do like Rust. One big thing out of the firefox world I really like.

Sorry for the wall of text.

D

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Re: Re: US White House urges
By: calcmandan to Nightfox on Sun Apr 28 2024 02:20 am

that require the utility of other development platforms. I don't know if it will ever be possible or appropriate to develop a website with C++. It simply cannot fulfill the context which HTML and other web languages provide. Now would browsers understand it even if tried.

I haven't seen anyone mention using C++ in place of HTML. They're for vastly different purposes. But I have seen programming languages used on back-ends for web sites. C#, Java, Python, and other languages have been used on the server side to run logic to retrieve and serve up content to the front end. I've even seen an Apache mod that lets you write Apache plug-ins in C++ so that you can use C++ on the back-end.

Nightfox