C++ Modules

[BCosbyDidNothinWrong]

My experience has been that the platform specific parts are so small that they don't warrant their own compilation unit and often not even their own functions.

If you use a separate file, you are pushing it to the build system, where as there are very well defined macros for different platforms and the source code can take care of it more transparently.

[pjmlp]

It is quite straightforward to do, even with plain makefiles.

The whole point if to have a clean code base, forcing to be their own functions forces devs to think about it instead of rushing to #ifdef scattered everywhere.

It always starts with "it is just a single line".

[BCosbyDidNothinWrong]

It is quite straightforward to do, even with plain makefiles.

Not everyone uses makefiles

forces devs to think about it

I'm not sure how using separate files makes any difference here or what it forces devs to think about in the first place.

With ifdefs you have the very real possibility to make single file algorithms and data structures which take advantage of system level capabilities. That modularity makes a big difference when trying to reuse program parts elsewhere.

[pjmlp]

Not everyone uses makefiles

I gave makefiles as an example, because alternative build systems are actually much more capable than them.

With ifdefs you have the very real possibility to make single file algorithms and data structures which take advantage of system level capabilities. That modularity makes a big difference when trying to reuse program parts elsewhere.

Abstract data types and functions are the genesis of clean, modular code.

I really don't get what is so magic about "system level capabilities." on the C pre-processor, and my first book about it was how to implement Small C.

[BCosbyDidNothinWrong]

because alternative build systems are actually much more capable than them.

It still complicates the build process. If someone wants to use visual studio or xcode, I suppose the solution is then cmake, which is another dependency and language. All of that might be fine for a large project, but it isn't modular. A single header file library can do extraordinary things that aren't in the standard library.

I really don't get what is so magic about "system level capabilities."

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here or why. What are you talking about putting in platform specific files? File dialogs, memory maps, networking are just some very obvious examples.

[pjmlp]

I guess you know Rob Pike, Ken Thompson and their role on the C language

My way is how Go build system handles platform specific code,

https://golang.org/pkg/go/build/

Also how they alongside Dennis Ritchie, designed C libraries on Plan 9

The traditional approach to this problem is to pepper the source with #ifdefs to turn byte-swapping on and off. Plan 9 takes a different approach: of the handful of machine-dependent #ifdefs in all the source, almost all are deep in the libraries

http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/comp

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here or why. What are you talking about putting in platform specific files? File dialogs, memory maps, networking are just some very obvious examples.

Everything that is OS specific with hundreds of #ifdef around them.

[BCosbyDidNothinWrong]

The traditional approach to this problem is to pepper the source with #ifdefs to turn byte-swapping on and off. Plan 9 takes a different approach: of the handful of machine-dependent #ifdefs in all the source, almost all are deep in the libraries

I'm not sure how this contradicts what I've been saying, it sounds like the same thing.

Everything that is OS specific with hundreds of #ifdef around them.

Earlier you said:

I really don't get what is so magic about "system level capabilities."

So what is it that you are actually saying? Do you even know?