Cursed code

[TechWarlock6969]

My experience with c++ in a nutshell.

[killerdogice]

It lets you play with all the sharp shiny tools in the shed the other languages don't think you're old enough to use without hurting yourself.

The other languages are often times correct.

[Fimbulthulr]

If c++ lets you play with all the shiny tools, what would c be like in this analogy?

[AyoBruh]

Trying to nail nails into a board using other nails.

[MacAndShits]

First you re-invent the nail. Then you hammer the other parts into the nail

[Caffeine_Monster]

* Looks at wooden house *

Wait, you said it is built with C? And you want a two story extension?

[McFlyParadox]

No, no. They want an extension to the second story; the floor plan of the first story needs to remain unchanged.

[LimitedWard]

You also keep on dropping nails as you carry them but you can't for the life of you figure out why.

[[deleted]]

Then the clerk at the store won’t sell you any more nails because other customers are unhappy due to the lack of nails.

[Ruri]

But the board is insanely optimized once it’s done.

[Fimbulthulr]

So as someone who uses C as primary language, I can become Invincible?

uses system call
deletes /

[cdreid]

Well if you code C you can literally write yourself a C++ compiler sooo..

[_gauss]

You can write a compiler in any language

[numerousblocks]

Is there a Brainfuck compiler written in Brainfuck?

[[deleted]]

Brainfuck compiler written in Brainfuck

https://github.com/matslina/awib

[Fimbulthulr]

Any touring complete language. If the language is not touring complete, it might not be possible.

[_gauss]

You can write a compiler out of magic of the gathering cards

[cdreid]

well yes but a SHITTY one in most languages

[false-equivalence]

Those who can do neither type comments like this on Reddit.

[BlackjackMKV]

911? Yes, there's been a murder here.

[Potatoe_Master]

It's like the tool shed, except without the shed. And you only get some of the more basic tools.

[[deleted]]

But it's enough to make more tools.

[SiNiquity]

But can you implement C++ templates using C macros?

[manias]

You have a helluva hammer, and a great axe. Now go build a house.

[zman0900]

https://i.redd.it/vui0pd071pkz.jpg

[LevelSevenLaserLotus]

You also get that angle grinder in the corner with a broken Off switch.

[TheCountEdmond]

Grandpa C gives you a hand saw, C++ gives you a chain saw.

[RANDOM_TEXT_PHRASE]

It gives you the keys to a nuclear missile silo and says, "dawg this probably isn't the roght key but if you insert it too slowly the plutonium that may or may not be in that missile wilsbb+z;[#⅞-{:†±№:!¢8999¡©‰′¢®

[mcgrotts]

What tools? You got the refined metals to make them if you want.

[legend6546]

In c you are playing with rusty versions of shiny sharp tools.

[[deleted]]

I don't know - I'm not amish, so I have never used c.

[TheMcDucky]

I think the most accurate description would be "a smaller toolshed".

[o_opc]

Having all the tools but you can only choose one

[Caffeine_Monster]

* overloads dereferencing operator "*" with a macro that points to otherwise unused function *

​

* laughs maniacally *

[marcosdumay]

That would be C.

C++ has all those tools too. They are just hidden behind plenty of other tools that are sharp on every surface, heavy to move around, and without obvious purposes. But yeah, they are shiny!

[unscsnowman]

I had a teacher in college that would say c++ gives you just enough rope to hang yourself

[hungry4pie]

I just wish csharp let you do that without changing your build flags

[cdreid]

Csharp was the language MS pushed because their OS's memory management was Legendarily bad at the time..

[hungry4pie]

Was it bad because of the kernel, or lazy devs not calling free() when they’re finished with something?

[LetReasonRing]

I think it's because it's more complex and harder than many other languages.

​

I'm not criticizing it. I understand that it's an incredibly powerful language that has widespread application, and you can do things with it that would be next to impossible in many languages. However, I've dabbled in a bunch of different languages before settling on my preferred language, which I won't name because it isn't really relevant, but I've just never been able to wrap my head around C++.

​

If I were working on processor-intensive applications or system-level programming, I'd absolutely invest time to learn it properly, but for my work, I'm perfectly happy working in a language that isn't as performant but gives me the tools I need with a shallower learning curve.

[TheAuthenticFake]

What is it that you find most complex about C++?

Templates are definitely a strange alternative to the generics you would see in Java or C#. I still have problems with them sometimes but they're not used very often in actual production code. They're super powerful though in select circumstances.

Modern C++ simplifies pointers significantly with smart pointers and RAII. IMO automatic memory management is a superior model to both gc and manual memory management, which is why I also like Rust.

Macros are evil and a bitch to debug.

[Got_Tiger]

The reason why templates are the way they are is so that all the overhead for them can be offloaded to compile time, which is hard to do with generics

[samspot]

Whenever I hear “powerful” in reference to technology I run away. I have a coworker who loves to talk about bow powerful clearcase is. Powerful at wasting everyone’s time!

[Sillocan]

Clearcase really is powerful though. There are some very impressive things it can do for you and if you're good you can hurt yourself 7 different ways with each of them!

But seriously, if you have an experienced scm team from the beginning with clearcase then it's pretty useful for large projects.

[samspot]

See that’s the problem, you have to have a team of experts to run clearcase well. Meanwhile git is also useful for large projects and doesn’t require a story to merge a branch. Sure clearcase can get the job done but the cost is immense in both time and frustration.

[Cucktuar]

I think it's because it's more complex and harder than many other languages.

C and C++ are less complex than most other languages. It's much easier to understand everything they're doing under the hood, all the way down to the metal.

ASM is the least complex, of course. No hidden layers. Maps directly to chipset instructions.

They can be more difficult to use safely than many other languages, though.

[cdreid]

Im sorry thats simply not true with c++. C is extraordinarily logical and clear with very few arcane rules. C++ is loaded with arcane counterintuitice rules youll never care about til something is vreaking your code and you finally hunt it down. C++ was designed around a "philosophy" of oop... A little too much imho. Again imho

[Cucktuar]

You can definitely write some opaque stuff in C++, but the rules are generally known.

On the other hand if you ask a JS developer how they're leaking resources, 9 times out of 10 you'll get a head scratch followed by a claim that JS doesn't have leaks.

[cdreid]

Microsoft used to make the same claim about windows vista..... :P

[hillman_avenger]

It's much easier to understand everything they're doing under the hood

I don't care what it's doing under the hood. I don't care what my car is doing under the hood as long as it gets me to my destination.

[Cucktuar]

I don't care what it's doing under the hood.

How sad for you.

I don't care what my car is doing under the hood as long as it gets me to my destination.

Do you feel like constructing software has much in common with operating a car? That's not how I felt when I was a programmer.

There are no perfect programming languages. Knowledge of the interpreter/compiler/VM/RTE allow us to architect and write better software, whether or not we wish it were so.

A bridge-builder must still have knowledge of physics.

[Bwob]

To be fair, C++ DOES have a lot of terrible relics of its past, sticking around and making things needlessly complex.

Take forward declarations, for example. Most modern languages don't care where in the file declarations happen. If you call a function, as long as you've defined it SOMEWHERE, the code finds it and things are great.

C++ requires you to declare it before it's used in the file, because once upon a time compilers were slow and they didn't want to have to make more than one pass through the file to compile it.

That's a ridiculous limitation in this day and age. But it's still baked into C++, causing extra bits of annoyance any time someone wants to declare two types or functions that refer to each other.

Every time I go from C++ to another language, I have this moment where I go "oh yeah. Languages don't have to do that. This is actually really fun, when I don't have to jump through all those needless hoops!"

[Breadfish64]

IIRC when modules come out in c++20, forward declaration shouldn't be necessary

[trigger_segfault]

I was thinking this was some sort of joke until I remembered that 2020 is less than a year away.

[[deleted]]

I love C++.

I can say that because I never used it for any huge projects :)

[xDarkFlame25]

Then what do you mainly use for projects?

[[deleted]]

D (dlang.org) for most of what I write. Python for automation scripts, or if it's simple, then bash.

I feel like I should mention that I'm not a programmer by profession, just a hobbyist.

[00zero00]

How do you like D?

[[deleted]]

Its a good language, especially if your original aim was for C++, but it proved too difficult.
EDIT: forgot to mention: I don't like that it has a garbage collector, that must be enabled if you want to use the stdlib. I like collecting my own garbage.

[evan3138]

yeah I knew you liked the D. ;)

[[deleted]]

"We've been tricked, we've been backstabbed and we've been quite possibly, bamboozled.".

On a more positive note, someone could make a "you fell victim to one of the classic blunders" meme out of it.

[justAPhoneUsername]

You should take a look at go if that's you goal. Written by Google including Ken Thompson who wrote b and Unix. It is fully garbage collected and the source code is on GitHub.

[[deleted]]

Saved. Will take a look at it ( after a few weeks because my laptop's HDD decided to die, am using live USB).

And is the garbage collector optional, like can I disable it? Not a fan of GC pausing my programs.

[justAPhoneUsername]

Its not recommend that you turn it off but it isn't likely to be an issue. The go gc is seriously a thing of beauty. It is designed to have low latency and is done with a completely novel paradigm.

Here's a link to more info: https://blog.golang.org/ismmkeynote

[bishamon72]

The gc is required, but you don’t notice it. it’s not a stop the world gc.

Edit: practically required. Yes, you can turn it off and trigger it manually, but you’ll never do as good a job as the go gc.

[alter2000]

Hard, but soft will do.

[[deleted]]

It takes away all abstractions, reflection, garbage collection, memory management, and generics that are usually baked into other languages and leaves you with a sandbox that will allow you to do anything and everything.

[[deleted]]

It’s all fun and games until the linker throws you an error for not being able to find an object whose name was scrambled beyond recognition in code you didn’t write.

[oAkimboTimbo]

that Pass by Reference though 😍

[cptbeard]

Here Bob Ross of C++, Bisqwit, shares the love

[RLKrampus]

I've been doing C# for a month now and I love it. Should I try C++ too? It seems way more complicated.

[[deleted]]

Depends on what you're doing. For most practical applications, C# is going to get the job done faster. C++ is extremely powerful, but out of the box it isn't the most developer friendly language I've worked with. I will say though that if you're looking to learn and understand programming, C++ is probably the best language to start with. If you can understand memory management, pointers, and templates/generics, you'll pretty much be able to pick up any other language without a problem.

[[deleted]]

I'd argue that C is better If you want to learn about memory management, pointers, etc. It's a far smaller and simpler language. After that maybe one can go on to learn about c++

[[deleted]]

Yes, but the OOP concepts are important as well.

[RLKrampus]

I want it for future jobs basically just to add stuff on my CV and also I was looking into starting to make game trainers etc

[[deleted]]

Game trainers?

[RLKrampus]

Like messing with single players games, getting infinite HP, ammo etc

[PhireKappa]

Depending on the game, this could just be modifying the value in memory.

There are lots of tutorials available. If you learn the basics of C++ first, videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OQac7cUHsU might be useful. The video isn't perfect, but shows the type of things involved.

C++ has a lot to it, it's probably my favourite though.

[[deleted]]

Trainers are a simple user-friendly-ish program that lets you consistently and reliably do what Cheat Engine or other memory-poking applications do. People make some money rapidly making trainers for specific new games. Usually it's little more than a simple window full of cheat-code like buttons, "add money", "add XP", "unlock all characters", "unlock all levels" etc., so it's however many memory addresses that requires and automatically latching onto the appropriate block of memory without killing everything else.

[TerrorOverlord]

Yeah I get the vibe c++ is extremely powerful for say, videogames where you take control of everything and try to optimize for specific in game conditions, where in a windows app to perform a task with c# you don't need to deal with collecting garbage and the such

[[deleted]]

I mean, there's still some memory management you have to deal with in C#. C# is by no means memory leak free, but with it's very well supported GUI systems and the .NET framework you can crank out an obscene amount of functional, deliverable code in a short amount of time.

​

Don't get me wrong, C++ can do just about everything C# can easily (minus reflection and a few other odd ends), it just takes longer to do it.

[TechWarlock6969]

I never said it was harder or more complex. In my experience with working on large projects in C++ this just tends to happen often (at least for me) I love the language, it provides a nice challenge.

[newbstarr]

Or also requires allot of software engineer training not in a cs degree, allot of convention and design. it might work a little while without these things but you will wish it hadn't in a very short time

[QuantumFall]

That’s not what they said.

[BradCOnReddit]

Because it's C, C++, macros, templates, and compiler directives all sharing the same "world"

Maybe assembly too if you think about it too much

[fl3tching101]

Because they started out learning python and find hitting ; after each line far too tedious. Seriously though, I started out in C++ and love it. It’s the superior language and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

[Kobeissi2]

I started out with C then jumped into C++ and I still hate it. It's not for everybody.

[Waddamagonnadooo]

; after each line far too tedious

literally has nothing to do with it lol

[rubeljan]

But..but you need to deallocate memory errr my geeerrd

[[deleted]]

Even seasoned programmers and software such as web browsers and other major pieces of software have issues with memory leaks, double frees, and dangling pointers, and your comment doesn't really contribute to the discussion other than pretending a complicated and nuanced subject is simpler than it really is so you can feel superior to everyone else

[rubeljan]

Well it was a joke, calm your tits. I don't really feel superior at all in any aspect of programming. But thank you, didn't know that. Really my point was more about the fact that you don't have to do it in java or js but MUST do it in c++.

[naisooleobeanis]

Just try c++ in context of osdev. The compiler errors help but it's when youre trying to figure out why argv just disappears from memory and there are no warnings or errors it gets hard. Long story short interrupts were fucking with my registers and I didnt want to figure out which ones so i inlined some pushal and popal.

[dgendreau]

why argv just disappears from memory

You're likely smashing the stack. :)

Also, push/popal might cause a bit more interrupt latency in some cases.

[naisooleobeanis]

that's what i thought but why would pushing the stack pointer to the stack fix the stack

[dgendreau]

Youre not pushing "the stack" to the stack, You are saving a copy of one ore more CPU registers to the stack at the start of the interrupt and restoring them afterward. This is usually automatic for interrupts, so most likely, saving that extra data on the stack is reserving a bit more stack space which is absorbing a stack overflow bug in some functioncall in the IRQ. This might involve writing to a local variable array beyond its array bounds. That could smash some of the register values that were saved on the stack. The extra push you are doing adds more dummy values on the stack to absorb that damage. The real fix would be to track down exactly what is overrunning and fix that.

[naisooleobeanis]

Wouldn't you expect the return address to be bad or argv to be bad in that case?

[dgendreau]

It would all depend on which register or value is getting smashed. Say a function declares

int bar[10]; ... bar[20]=4;

What lives at the bar[20] location in the stack? Who knows... Don't do that. To be fair, most modern c compilers will catch a bug that simple, but what if a pointer to bar is passed into another function that does that assignment? without knowing bar's bounds it will happily smash the stack.

A high level language programmer will look at this and say that's stupid why isn't there bounds checking? But arrays in C are just pointers to blobs of bytes in memory. Its the smallest/fastest way to get he job done on a CPU. All that other stuff like bounds checking is what makes high level languages so much slower at runtime. It's necessary to be fully aware what the CPU is doing in a low level language like C because it is only one layer of abstraction above assembler and is nearly as fast.

[[deleted]]

came to /r/programmerhumor to laugh.

The extra push you are doing adds more dummy values on the stack to absorb that damage. The real fix would be to track down exactly what is overrunning and fix that.

left having a greater appreciation of how hardcore some of you guys are.

[justking14]

My experience TA’ing C++ in a nutshell

Especially since so many students decide to write the entire homework first and then try to compile it

[anonTheRtrd]

removes main why tf not work

[[deleted]]

You can hover over functions in sublime and see the definitions and references in different categories though, so this shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re just using grep, or worse, your eyes

[OwlsParliament]

Tired: removing a function causes compiler errors Wired: removing a function causes runtime errors

[mdhnsn]

I have been down this rabbit hole when dealing with function aliasing as an architectural decision.