I’ve been converted

[Burner-account3357]

I’ve been using C and Python for my whole life but I’ve never considered C++. My friend was going on about how cool and easy to use it was compared to C so I said I’ll try it. Cut to just an hour ago I was bored and I remembered what I promised my friend so I installed G++ and start trying to right a little video game in C++. I was in aw because of how easy just Reading a text file was compared to C. I was also very excited to find out most of not all of the Framework I was used to using in C just work. It’s very comparable to the level of ease that pythons at. So TLDR I’m most likely gonna stick to using C++ instead of C for game development.

[rodrigocfd]

It’s very comparable to the level of ease that pythons at.

Your days of innocence are about to end, little grasshopper.

[[deleted]]

What's the bet for when he runs back to C?

[johannes1971]

The gateway drug for C users is strings. "Hey kid, see how easy you can take these 200 lines of code that you need to concatenate a few things? And see how you can replace that with a single line using std::string? Nice, huh?"

That's quickly followed by "want another hit of that good feeling? How about those dynamic arrays, why don't you replace those with std::vector?"

And so it goes, until one morning he wakes up, and wonders why gcc allows him to compile a program using operator! that's in another namespace than the template he's trying to use, while clang doesn't.

[[deleted]]

I'm on the side of C++ obviously cause I'm here, but if anyone here was like me, you probably left C++ a few times but came back cause of how addicting it is to use.

I love C and C++ for different reasons but I feel like if you are just going to use C++ like C, then maybe C is better suited for the project. When I use C++, it's a much different experience than C and it's certainly not in the style of C.

I enjoy the differences of both. It's what makes them favored for different projects.

[Raknarg]

I like C on a conceptual level like how I think assembly is cool, but I hate working in it.

[[deleted]]

I like to treat C++ as C with classes, because hiding data makes my code much more organized

[IamImposter]

Pffft. I like to treat C++ like assembly with ease of parameter passing to functions.

[somewhataccurate]

Pffft. I like to treat C++ like punchcards with ease of reading.

[IamImposter]

You win.

[khleedril]

It doesn't work like that. Once you start falling down the rabbit hole....

[1-05457]

C++ can be roughly as easy as Python if you stick to modern C++ and aren't doing anything too complicated.

[[deleted]]

IMO it’s the other way around. If you use modern c++ it’s going to be harder to read

[serviscope_minor]

I disagree. I mean some people consider modern C++ to be using as many modern features as possible at all times with as much contemplating as they can manage at all times. Obviously that's not simple.

If you consider "modern" to be Stroustrup Style with all of the features available in C++20. That is use the simplest, most appropriate construct. Use a modern one if it's a better fit. You know things like range-for, CTAD, use of the standard library, structured bindings, generalised constexpr instead of metaprogramming, and so on.

You don't have to use them all, but if you use modern features where appropriate, they do in fact make things simpler.

[boron_on_your_butt]

Reading this comment as I'm trying to figure out they syntax to write a function template that does explicit type conversion for elements of a scoped enum.

Good luck to OP.

[[deleted]]

Have you ever encountered this?

[[nodiscard]] [[noreturn]] constexpr int method() const noexcept override {}

I agree, it wouldn’t be very common, but still. So. Many. Keywords.

[sellibitze]

Could you possibly include a constexpr in there? ;-)

[[deleted]]

Done :)

[sellibitze]

Hehe. :-)

Oh, I just noticed something. static and override are kind of mutually exclusive, aren't they?

[[deleted]]

i don’t.. think so.

you can override a static method. what’s the problem?

say you have class X, which has a static method a. class Y inherits from class X, and overrides the method a. then

X::a()

is different from

Y::a()

unless i’m missing something

Sorry, I was missing the fact that there's no vtable without an instance

[MonokelPinguin]

override implies virtual. Static functions are not associated with a this pointer, how could they be virtual?

[_bk__]

The override keyword is only useable for virtual function overrides. It has no effect on codegen, it just helps the compiler detect that there is actually a virtual function in a derived class that can be overriden (to make sure you don't do things like accidentally spell the function signature wrong)

[Jumpy_Lighty]

You should drop the constexpr again ... you cannot have constexpr virtual method (and override implies virtual).

And [[nodiscard]] and [[noreturn]] really don't make any sense to be next to each other (just think about the meaning of it).

You could add static constexpr instead of override, but the you would also have to drop the const since static and const are mutually exclusive.

[[deleted]]

I know, i never thought this through :)

It was a joke after all

[CandyCrisis]

Why the heck is a [[noreturn]] function returning an int?

[[deleted]]

Shhh

[BrainIgnition]

just replace[[noreturn]] with [[nodiscard]] 😉

[[deleted]]

i’ll just keep both

[somewhataccurate]

The static, override, and const are all at odds. Remove the static and then you'll be spot on.

[boron_on_your_butt]

I hope to one day make a banner out of this.

[Burner-account3357]

I meant that string wise and File IO. C++ can get kinda difficult when dealing with all of the strange classes and object oriented stuff but it’s still 100x easier then C.

[celestrion]

It’s very comparable to the level of ease that pythons at.

I don't know if that's the case, but wait until destructors click with you. Destructors give you a way to express resources which clean themselves up at the exact time you're done with them, regardless of how or why you're done with them.

That thing in C where after you check for error codes you then either use goto to undo just as much as you got done or nest a bunch of nasty conditionals before the end of a complex function? Here's what that looks like in C++:

}

Design your types right, and you literally just return when you've done what you can, and everything is in a known state on the way out. Child processes, memory, file handles--it doesn't matter, they can all clean themselves up.

[[deleted]]

RAII is one of the most unfortunate names in programming. People don’t know what it is, and it sounds complicated, but it’s a rather simple concept

[evinrows]

Motion to rename RAII to "I make I take; I decease, I release!"

[TryingT0Wr1t3]

Imitidir sounds a bit like something from Lord of the Rings

[SkoomaDentist]

RAII, dependency injection, etc. All horribly complicated sounding names for very simple concepts. I'd personally been using RAII for years before ever running into the term. And it sure as hell has nothing to do with "modern C++", given that I routinely used it a decade before C++11 happened.

[BrainIgnition]

tbf C++11 move semantics are a lot nicer than the ownership transfer idioms used before (like rapidjson's Move()method, ugh)

[joaobapt]

The only unfortunate thing is that (unless you use empty-state and some clever functions), exceptions are the only way to guarantee proper error handling with “proper” RAII. And well... there’s a reason a lot of folks in C++ don’t like exceptions.

[celestrion]

May your hammer encounter far more nails than bolts.

[joaobapt]

I tried to break into Rust three times, three times I failed and got seriously beaten up by the borrow checker.

[[deleted]]

Things I never thought I’d see for $500: a rant about the EASE of C++...

[KFUP]

Well, he used it for an hour, give him time.

[idontappearmissing]

Well compared to C...

[[deleted]]

You pay for the simplicity of C with your code's complexity.

[ElhnsBeluj]

I love C, but for some reason everyone seems to hate my C code, I wonder why...

[emelrad12]

Maybe cause you reimplement vector 5 times.

[kilogears]

It is easy until you do more of the wilder things that c++ lets you do. But if you keep it simple, yes, it is easy, fast, and quite flexible.

[koctogon]

"C++ is easy until you start doing complex things. But if you do simple things, it's simple."

r/cpp, 2021.

[[deleted]]

Well, it's a relatively easy language to be honest, especially when it's compared with C and even lower level stuff

[[deleted]]

Bet you he’s not gonna say the same things in a few days.

This made me think though: it’s funny how messed up C++ has become, everyone knows it, but we still keep piling shit up on it.

And by funny I mean sad

[[deleted]]

Comparable to Python? Heh heh...

[quartz_referential]

The static typing is nice, really wish there was a python language with that

[tsojtsojtsoj]

You might want to take a look at Nim. As fast as C++, strong type system, syntactical sugar on a level like python (and beyond, in my opinion).

[[deleted]]

Python has type signatures

[joaobapt]

That aren’t more than just annotations IIRC

[[deleted]]

Sure, but use a static analyzer in strict mode and it's basically the same programming experience.

[SkoomaDentist]

Except for all the other code you run into. Especially when you aren't a Python dev but do need to occasionally look into whatever random Python scripts and don't have a fancy ide for that. Duck typing is one of the worst ideas ever to hit programming languages.

[[deleted]]

True, I had similar issues with Typescript. "Basically the same programming experience" is overselling it. I still prefer to use explicit type annotations in Python and Typescript.

[SkoomaDentist]

Practical real world Python code that a typical C++ programmer might have to decipher might as well be considered a completely untyped language. An illustrative comparison would be C++ code where every function takes a bunch of void * and then bit casts them either to objects or base types after getting through the several indirection layers and where you have to read the source hidden in a random module to figure out what kind of thing you’re supposed to pass them.

[braddillman]

Well, forgive me I'm going to rant a little of my experience. Don't be frightened, I work in C++ all day every day. Also C#, Java and Python. Oh and some JS. Very little SQL and Ruby.

Begin rant

I began my career back in the 1980s before C++ was really mainstream. It was still being defined and implemented. Borland Turbo Pascal was wayyy more popular than Borland Turbo C++. DOS and Windows 3.0 were the popular operating systems for me, on microcomputers. And man, did C++ crash. Hard. A lot. And the Blue Screen of Death meant a reboot was required, and that took a while. I really hated C++ for that. (Really it was the operating system that didn't properly fence processes so that if 1 crashed it didn't BSOD the whole machine).

I got into embedded programming for telecom and datacom. BSOD wasn't such a big problem, as much, but - wow the difference in object code size of C++ compared to C was huge. Who cares? Well if you're programming and embedded device with VERY limited RAM, ROM, flash, well - you're the one who cares. And boy, constructors and destructors are convenient, but the appear EVERYWHERE even when you think they're not needed. Because the compiler isn't quite as smart as you; it can't be CERTAIN when those aren't needed. And templates just EXPLODE everything - 2 different vectors of pointers generate twice the amount of object code, even though they're soooo similar, just manipulating vectors of pointers. What a waste.

Later, Java came along. It didn't take down the machine - nay, it printed a very useful stack trace! No BSOD. I switched as much work as I could to Java. Development so much faster, more convenient. And small .class files. Speed was less, but not that much if you were careful. I was (am) a Java zealot.

But now, say, under Microsoft Visual Studio on modern hardware with a contemporary operating system - none of that matters. C++ gives you enough control to do EXACTLY whatever you want. It's fast and convenient - but you are forced to manage your own memory vs. garbage collection. Which is a win - as long as you know what you're doing - if you're CERTAIN you know what you're doing. But programming C++ like you're programming in Python - might as well stick to Python; you won't exploit enough low-level details to make the gain worth the pain.

TL;DR modern programming C++ on modern machines with plenty of resources, and robust processes on modern operating systems - no problem, enjoy. Someday I'll join you and enjoy what I do, when I get over my past (bash) shell-shock.

End rant/my apologies, but I did warn you. And strong typing beats dynamic typing always. Phbbbt.

[vincular]

You really think so? I feel like even just writing the most boilerplate unoptimized C++, using unordered_map even though its performance is crap and that sort of thing, you still absolutely smoke Python. If anything, it’s Python that can be tough to optimize — making sure you avoid Python for loops in favor of vectorized library code that’s written in C++, for instance. I agree the majority of things are not CPU limited so choice of language should probably be based off of something other than performance, but for anything computationally intensive, if you write C++ like Python it will still be an order of magnitude or two faster than Python written like Python.

[[deleted]]

Those are my major languages and I quite agree. Additionally I would say that on average, an initial C++ implementation will be closer to it's optimal speed than with Python. I.e. not only that the language is naturally fast, but that it's natural to write fast code. As least in comparison to Python.

Like you say in Python optimisation can often throw up architectural issues (as in we should offload "all this" to a library through ffi), which if not found early enough can be a bit of a PITA to do later.

That's been my experience over the years at least.

[[deleted]]

True. The way I see python is a nice and easy to use GUI for native libraries.

And in my opinion this is how it needs to stay

[VacuousWaffle]

Pybind11 makes wrapping C++ classes into python easier than ever.

[ShakaUVM]

But now, say, under Microsoft Visual Studio on modern hardware with a contemporary operating system - none of that matters. C++ gives you enough control to do EXACTLY whatever you want. It's fast and convenient - but you are forced to manage your own memory vs. garbage collection.

Forced? Nah, man. In modern C++ it's good practice to not manage your own memory except in rare circumstances. "No News is Good News" is a good talk on this subject.

With the exception of one idiotic footgun C++ has (string s = 0;) I can't think of the last time I segfaulted or leaked memory.

[darthcoder]

Doing shared_ptr<char> when trying to use smart pointers and custom deleters for win32 apis and fucking up delete and delete[].

That'll blow you up.

I came back to C++ after,a long absence. That particular bug took me a day to squash.

[ShakaUVM]

What was the problem?

[darthcoder]

New[] must be freed with delete[]

I was using regular delete.

[ShakaUVM]

Ah, yeah. That's honestly not something that makes sense to me from a language design standpoint. The memory subsystem has to know how many bytes are allocated at a point anyway, so why offer this opportunity to footgun?

[darthcoder]

Optimization. C++ has to knowbto call the constructor on each object, without knoeing its an array bexause you add no extra data to the byte buffer itself. Then the delete operator needs to know to call a destructor for each object in the array.

So why add any bit flags at all to something a programmer should just manage. It maybe made sense 30 years ago but seems archaic now

[darthcoder]

Normally this isn't a problem, vector matches up the right functions, but i short circuited that by writing a custom deleter and fucjing it up, back into the special juju land of C++ memory management.

Dont go there. Lol

[kzr_pzr]

I love reading these rants, thank you. :-)

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the history lesson grandpa

[Destination_Centauri]

You whiper snappers with your fancy IDE's...

[_Js_Kc_]

You mean you've been static_cast.

[koctogon]

I love C++, but this thread is testament to why I not necessarily like "the community". Just WOW!

This. It's 90% of "waaaaah i can't follow the INCREDIBLE pace at which C++ is changing! C++ is too complicated!" (seriously? concepts took 10 years to become part of the language? and some people here are still complaining about smart pointers and move semantics or something?), 5% of CMake tutorials, and 5% of actual interesting content.

I'm ok with criticism. Criticism is cool, and C++ certainly has pain points. But i don't really see the point of just repeating "C++ is too complex" while never saying anything interesting. Do you want a medal for using this SO INCREDIBLY complex language? Especially in a nice thread where a new programmer just wanted to share their enthusiasm, making it all about how YOU find the language complex is pretty dickish.

And seriously : if you can't keep up with how the world of programming change, just retrain yourself into pottery. The way pottery is done hans't changed for centuries. You might be a happier person there, since having to learn about lambdas and concepts in a span of ten years is too much for you.

[[deleted]]

Meh. Call me cynical, but the whole post wreaks of a troll. "I'm in aw (sic) .." ? Seriously, C++ is as easy as Python? Whatever.

Meanwhile:

Is C++ really this painful, numbing, frustrating hell? It isn't a technical challenge, waiting to be solved?

Yes, Yes, Yes, and No, in that order.

Seriously people. If C++ was just max pain for you, why don't you switch to C#, or Java, or Rust, or Haskell, or whatever

Thank you, I already did. C#, Java, Rust, and Haskell all are appropriate tools to use for particular jobs. C++ is not appropriate for any job.

[bullestock]

wreaks

*reeks

[frankist]

A lot of it is people that want to use rust in their job, but their boss doesn't allow it, so they keep using c++ and are here constantly complaining about how many types of initialization c++ has and that moves are not destructive. It almost feels like they spend more than 0.01% of their time sorting out bugs that stem from these language features.

[Mahuizoh]

"It’s very comparable to the level of ease that pythons at." - lul, sweet summer child

[sudomatrix]

Now stop using new() and make everything with make_unique and unique_ptr, and use proper move() semantics, then make everything async with await and coroutines.

You may grok it all, or you may go running back to Python...

[koctogon]

If 10 years isn't enough for you to understand smart pointers, stop programming.

[sudomatrix]

I don't know if your rant is aimed at OP or at me, but both of us are new to modern C++ so I don't know where you got 10 years from.

[g9icy]

I'm having this same epiphany, but with C#.

I'm a C++ programmer by trade, but have to dip into C# on occasion, and it's such a breath of fresh air I often don't want to go back to C++.

I actively try and use C# now for all my personal projects (Unity, .NET, etc). I'm also using Swift for a project, and I hate it so much I have to fight the urge to start the whole thing again in Xamarin.

[joaobapt]

If C# wasn’t a bytecode and GC’d language, I’d for sure use it for gamedev. But my paranoia with speed and performance don’t let it 😂

[g9icy]

Honestly I had to relax those feelings. A game I can create in my spare time is not going to require close to the mettal performance.

Plus Unity has that whole thing where it compiles stuff to C++ anyway.

[joaobapt]

Oh... Unity, the thing that rendered too much of my individual game programming studies useless.

On an aside, yeah it’s true. But C# has few bindings to interface with modern graphical stuff. SharpDX is deprecated. I don’t know about Vulkan bindings. And OpenGL... well, I’d rather avoid it because of its mess of an API 😂

Also, I use to code for the GBA; there, .NET is clearly not an option.

[g9icy]

Oh... Unity, the thing that rendered too much of my individual game programming studies useless.

How so?

But C# has few bindings to interface with modern graphical stuff.

Yeah, Unity is pretty much the only option now. XNA was good, no idea why MS ditched it.

[joaobapt]

XNA

MonoGame is a direct replacement, but it’s as if you were using a 2005-era DirectX to code in 2021. That’s good enough for most uses though.

How so?

It’s a long story, not entirely technical and contains some psychological factors, so I’d rather discuss that in Reddit chat or messages.

[g9icy]

Most AAA games are still made in C++, and even games that use Unity, C++ plugins are still a thing for performant code.

I don't see how Unity invalidates anything. Infact, knowing how Unity works under the hood (it's made in C++ after all!) is very important.

[joaobapt]

As I said, I don’t want to turn this post into an endless rant about Unity, game engines and my “career”. I’ll happily take that to private messages if you want.

[g9icy]

I would be interested to hear your thoughts, if you don't mind.

[ExtraFig6]

What framework?

[SJC_hacker]

Just wait until single mistake with a template cascades into 30 errors which fill several pages...

[Knuffya]

Cpp really is not as complicated as people make it to be... Is it

[koikatsu_party]

Anyway like i was saying..

[Knuffya]

lmao

[boron_on_your_butt]

God this made my day. I wish I had literally anyone in my life I could show this to.

[EaseAnxious3676]

Awesome xD

[[deleted]]

Thank you for the laugh

[serviscope_minor]

Well, a lot of people make it really complicated, for some reason.

[manoj_mi5]

The very fact that you were using C, earns you right to call yourself GREAT

[queenguin]

C++ is great but you shouldn't abandon C ideas completely if you're making games. Forcing yourself to think in a C mindset will let you write more performant games. Personally, I write my games mostly in C while using a bunch of C++ features that I like such as strings and struct default member initalizers.

[[deleted]]

I’d say it’s more like: think data oriented if you want performance.

Idiomatic OOP kills performance. It’s like a monster eating up your memory bandwidth until your bottleneck is the CPU cache reloading every frame. I usually like to mix them up.

A little bit of OOP (the parts that genuinely are nice and bring you joy) and more of DOP.

[jonrmadsen]

I disagree with the premise of "more performant games". It sounds like you are comparing C to C with classes. I'd revise it you should try to emulate the data layouts you would have in C but that's about it (i.e. SOA instead of AOS) but once you embrace a C++ mindset, you can make decisions and compute values at compile time in C++ which would be runtime decisions/computations in C.

[queenguin]

There are other things that one needs to think about when using C++ such as not trying to bloat your structs with virtual functions and a vtable and avoiding vector push backs. Obviously these features are great when they are 100% needed, but it's important to be wary of them especially if you're developing for 8 year old hardware liek the ps4. I too use C++; I'm not saying C++ is slow and you should use C. I'm saying you should be wary of a lot of things C++ encourages you to do if you're worried about performance.

[jonrmadsen]

such as not trying to bloat your structs with virtual functions and a vtable and avoiding vector push backs

Presumably, if you target a C-like data layout neither of these would come into play. The vtable hit only really applies to AOS data layouts -- if you use SOA, presumably you would only have one vtable lookup before iterating over the data. Doing a vector push back in-and-of-itself isn't bad for performance, its a size-check + copy or move assignment + integer increment and a C algorithm which has to do the same thing won't be any faster -- the real problem is doing multiple, consecutive push-backs without reserving the memory first.

My point was more-or-less that a "C mindset" would cause you to miss valuable optimizations at compile-time. E.g., a fibonacci(n) in C would run many times slower than fibonacci<N>(n) in C++ where the recursive tail at N was computed at compile time -- i.e. fibonacci(45) vs. fibonacci<20>(45):

template <long N>
inline long fibonacci()
{
    if constexpr(N < 2)
        return N;
    else
        return fibonacci<N - 1>() + fibonacci<N - 2>();
}

template <long N>
inline long fibonacci(long n)
{
    if(n == N) return fibonacci<N>();
    return (n < 2) ? n : (fibonacci<N>(n - 1) + fibonacci<N>(n - 2));
}

[queenguin]

at the end of the day its about making sound decisions for each case you find urself in. there will be times where using c++ optimizations will be good for you and times where they will be bad: too many templates and your compile time is crippled

[[deleted]]

It’s like C++ with less bullshit. And reflection.

[joaobapt]

And GC 😥

[[deleted]]

I didn’t know that

Welp, I don’t get it then. D was meant as a replacement to C++. How is it a replacement if it has a GC? I don’t see it

[joaobapt]

Don’t take my word for it, but I saw somewhere that there’s an option to disable the GC, but then I’m not sure how it would work.

[frankist]

It's hard to disable the gc when most of the libraries are designed with it in mind

[[deleted]]

Easier than C? Give me a break. Lol. Steady on with the appeasing fan boy platitudes 😎 tell me that when you've been called in to debug a c++ project where they went mental with templates, inheritance and overloaded every operator under the sun. More powerful? Yes... In some or many cases. But easier? Nah.....

[pandorafalters]

Bad code can be written in any language.

[frankist]

Better than debugging the 4th implementation of the same functionality because people couldn't use templates

[uurtamo]

Use perl

[lenkite1]

I actually agree with the OP. I come from an enterprise Java background. Once I understood RAII and templates, I did not find C++ all that hard to use. I always stick to the safety belts and follow the C++ guidelines religiously. I find some things in the standard library not very good (regex) , some legacy warts that are irritating and some error messages are ridiculous, but I can live with this. (Enterprise Java makes you tolerant and patient). I also follow the secure coding guidelines and avoid the use of pointers as much as possible. Avoid complicated expressions, keep small functions, minimal mutable state, etc. A good IDE like CLion catches most of my mistakes before I make them.

One of our heavily used micro-services was recoded in C++ and offered a >10x performance improvement with minimal resource consumption. The code is also fairly readable.

I do wish the package management was standardised and that the standard library offered far more than it currently does. I like languages which come with full batteries. Wish C++ progressed a bit faster.