On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 11:49:56 +0530, nix wrote: > Hi guys > Well I read the faq and all the arguements but they are not > convinicing. They 'had' tried to make one kernel with c++ but it did not live > upto the expectations (space time drawbacks). The drawbacks are those of a > the "then" c++ compilers. the compilers must have been become better. There > is this Intel 7.0 c++ compier released which seems to be a competitor to the > Gnu's Compiler maybe with that one...(who knows). Since intel C compiler is actualy quite a lot better than GCC, if the C++ compiler is merely a competitor, it's actualy no good ;-). > Conceptually c++ beats c anytime, It's a matter of taste. IMO c++ can't conceptualy beat anything, because it does not have a concept. Usualy, C code is a lot more readable, unless the C++ code is VERY good written. And there are not too many GOOD programmers. > but is limited in the practicality (as semed in those days). Things > must have changed with the compiler technology and we must have better c++ > compilers now. Since C is mostly a subset of C++, C++ can never get better. It can at most get as good (but there are features in C++ that can't). > Other arguments that c code being better than c++ (all compiler > dependent and an age old myth; if anyone can prove this, then aggreed), many > c users etc, are not firmly based. So until one shows the advantages of a c++ > based kernel, c still rules. C is a subset of c++ and even linear logic with > functions and structures can be used. So i dont see why not go for it. And, by the same logic I don't see why DO. One only does things when it's actualy WORTH the effort. The FAQ says, that kernel has about 4 milion lines of code. I can't imagine ANYTHING that would be WORTH converting to be at least compileable with C++ compiler (c++ reservers many identifier used throughout kernel and would complain about some typecasting that C does implicitly and is quite common). > What ultimately matters is concepts and applications of concepts. why > simulate object oriented concept in c when c++ already defines a clean > way to do it. Perhaps because the objects, as used in kernel, offer much MORE flexibility, that what C++ objects offer (you can't exchange virtual methods RUNTIME, but you CAN do that with function pointers -- in several places the pointers are actualy copied runtime from some other structure as a matter of optalization). > maybe the compiler is not good aggreed, fine. But with a farsighted > perspective it is only a matter of time we would have a vey good c++ > compiler. The code can still be ported, cant it? What would be the benefits of doing so? Again, it's some 4 million lines of code and things that won't compile witch C++ compiler are not uncommon in that code. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jan 'Bulb' Hudec <bulb@ucw.cz> -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
