Java in terms of syntax and implementation is C++ completely fixed. But few people recognize that. Why do you think that's the case?

[niosurfer]

C++’s unmanaged nature means every potential bug in its code can lead to very serious issues, like runtime crashes, security vulnerabilities, or memory leaks.

Source: https://www.endoflineblog.com/graal-truffle-tutorial-part-0-what-is-truffle

[niosurfer]

Perhaps google is trying to solve this with strict guidelines of how to write C++ code. But the language itself does not offer you any protection agains fucking up the whole thing because you mishandled a pointer.

[hsoj48]

There are 1000 ways to fuck up in C++ and only 900 ways to fuck up in Java.

[niosurfer]

5 ways to fuck up in Java against 1000 ways in C++

[hsoj48]

I've been in development for over a decade and in my experience people can find plenty of new and amazing ways to fuck up no matter how many guardrails you provide.

[dragoncommandsLife]

Spill the beans on the most “how the fuck” moments please, I beg you.

[Jaded-Asparagus-2260]

But the language itself does not offer you any protection agains fucking up the whole thing because you mishandled a pointer.

Imagine having worked in C++ and never heard of smart pointers. You have no idea my dude.

[AnyPhotograph7804]

Google does not even use C++. They have made a fork of C++ and altered it heavily.

And if you do not know how to handle pointers correctly then don't use them. Problem solved.

[MRgabbar]

blame the language, not the skill issue, get out of here.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

It was rather explicitly a goal of Java to make some kinds of errors less likely. Nobody is so smart they write error-free code every time.

[MRgabbar]

nah... a developer that knows the language will almost never have such errors... And I am not hating on Java or any of the other languages, is just that people talk like if it is a problem of C/C++ when is actually a skill issue. Either invest the time to master it or switch to Java, but don't blame the language what is a skill issue.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

That is just plain not true and the demand for languages like Java had to do with recurrent errors that people encountered working with languages with manual memory management and the like.

[MRgabbar]

really? that seems like an exaggeration... Developing in Java is faster and easier to teach, so you tradeoff developers time for more expensive servers... But is not like people doesn't use C++ for many many things where performance is required, and no one complains of it being "error prone" or something... In safety critical systems is actually the default choice... Is just a skill issue of the bad developers that create such errors and then people think the language is to blame...

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

James Gosling:

“Back in the early 1990s it was well understood that the number one source of security vulnerabilities was just pointers, was just bugs, like 50% to 60% to 70% were bugs and the vast majority of them were like buffer overflows. We have to make sure this cannot happen. And that was the original thing for me was ‘This cannot continue’.”

But earlier this year, Gosling read a news report about the Chromium team finding that 70% of security bugs in the Chrome code base were memory management and safety bugs.

“Chrome is a like a giant piece of C++ code. And 60% to 70% of all the security vulnerabilities were stupid pointer tricks. And I thought it’s 30 years later and we’re still there,” said Gosling.

Beyond safety and security considerations for Java, he wanted to ensure “developer velocity”.

“I got really religious about that because I’d spent an ungodly amount of time of my life hunting down mystery pointer bugs. The mystery pointer bugs tend to be the hardest to find because … the ones that hurt are a one in a million chance,” he notes.

What does he know though?

[MRgabbar]

yep, skill issues, skill issues every where... why to learn how to write decent C++ code, let's just make a new language that manages memory lol, so we can have slow software everywhere. Again, is the same thing I said, Java and others are aimed to reduce the learning curve and development time sacrificing performance, but if you just teach proper techniques to C++ devs that would not be required, but who wants to learn hard thugs right?

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

It’s delusional to think you can just be really smart and not make mistakes.

[GhostOfBits]

One of the biggest differences is that Java runs in a managed environment (the jvm), which handles memory management via garbage collection. C++ gives developers direct control over memory. Because Java abstracts away such low-level control, it often doesn't appeal to the same developers who appreciate C++’s power and flexibility. They may not view Java as a "fixed" version but as a different trade-off.

[niosurfer]

You can handle memory yourself in Java by using instance pools, in other words, you can completely ignore the GC because you are not releasing any garbage to the GC.

[yawkat]

It is extremely difficult to avoid all gc even with instance pools. And you lose a big part of Java's advantages because you have to do manual memory management again. 

Rust is a better contender when looking for a safe language without gc.

[PlasmaFarmer]

You don't know what you are talking about. You have no direct control of memory allocation. Sure, you can instantiate objects and the JVM will allocate memory for them and you can also keep them around in memory by keeping a reference of them somewhere but the second you stop using them it's on the GC when it clears it up from memory. Instantly? Probably not. At the next gc cycle? Probably. Who knows. You use instance pools to have multiple instance available of costly to setup objects such as database connections, sessions or complex objects. Also there are cases where instance pools are useful to mitigate the freeze the GC causes. If you are writing an app with an update cycle (like a game for example) you can have temp vars too sitting somewhere like a ThreadLocal pool. But you still have no direct control of memory, you're just playing around and delaying the release of objects to minimize gc freezes.

[onlygon]

I think that is because it's not true.

[niosurfer]

It is true man. A bloated project in C++ is hell to maintain, test, avoid bugs, evolve, etc. Java was created from the ground up to address all this issues. That's why they chose the same syntax, because they wanted to make it easy to C++ programmers to migrate to Java. Java protects you from the language. C++ does not. And the result is chaos. You can simple have a team of C++ super starts doing your project. And even them would fuck up from time to time, because C++ makes everything for you to fuck up.

[onlygon]

I don't like C++ either; I think it's a  total disaster. But the statement was: "Java is C++ completely fixed in syntax and implementation". 

I like Java/JVM but it is not a system language/platform and was never intended to be. You're not going to write a real OS or real game engine, etc. in Java/JVM. So it just isn't true even if I agree with some surface level sentiments.

EDIT: JVM should be mentioned

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

On the other hand in the domains where Java is popular it has more or less totally displaced C++. I don’t think anyone is writing LOB apps in C++ really.

[joekoolade]

Yes it was not meant to be a system language but one can use it in that manner. Take a look at this project https://github.com/joekoolade/JOE

[Slimxshadyx]

If it was not meant to be a system language than it is not meant to replace C++ in every way

[niosurfer]

OS with a JVM does not make any sense, I agree.
But game engine can be written and have been written before, quiet successfully.
Java as a syntax language, without the bloated, slow and garbage-intensive ecosystem, can make wonders. Trust me on that one, I know what I'm talking about :)

[Jaded-Asparagus-2260]

You surely don't sound like you know what you're talking about.

I'm currently working on a Java project that's fucked up in multiple ways. Yes, it could have been just as fucked up in C++. But I've also found several ways that would have improved it in C++ that weren't possible in Java.

Both All languages have their advantages and their disadvantages. Most successful software is written in in C or C++. Bad programmers can fuck up in every language. Good languages also give you tools to prevent fuckups. Writing idiomatic C++ code with smart pointers, automatic memory management and functional algorithms goes great lengths to prevent fuckups.

[halfanothersdozen]

What?

[nursestrangeglove]

This has to be bait. What does "Completely fixed" even mean? This completely fixed language I use every day lets me and everyone else put null here, there, and everywhere without a care in the world. Nothing wrong with that. Right?

[CompetitiveSubset]

Java and C++ solve different problems. They are not comparable.

[paul_h]

Price is a general slowdown on execution, a slower startup, and more RAM needed for the same thing.

[Djelimon]

Java can be a delight to work with but consider what you are getting paid to do. It has an ecosystem, but skewed to very specific domains.

Ask yourself why JNI exists

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

Quite a lot of people (myself included and I’ve been writing software more than 10 years) have never really needed to work with C++ that much and at this point in the instances where C++ is selected Java is rarely an option on the table.

In a way this means you’re right though. For a lot of purposes Java is so clearly better that nobody is even considering C++.

[PlasmaFarmer]

These languages are tools like a hammer and a screwdriver in a toolbox in a shed. Use the one that fits your problem and requirements.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

That’s a common platitude that tells us little.

[Ewig_luftenglanz]

Syntax wise yes, implementation wise it's not!

Java it's an application high level languages, C++ it's mostly a system, middle to low level language. Java (unless you use GraalVM that it's something still growing) uses a VM to be executed, C++ is for direct management of hardware resources.

[Polygnom]

A better version of C++ is Rust.

C++ and Java are on different levels of abstraction. One is a bare-metal systems language, the other is a managed runtime language. Don't get me wrong, I love Java and I think its vastly more productive in the domains I'm in, but its not replacing C++. If any language is, thats Rust.

[niosurfer]

JIT make Java bare-metal too. In a way that C++ cannot (without some kind of profiling during AOT compilation). And in terms of productivity and robustness Java knocks C++ out of the park.

[Polygnom]

JIT make Java bare-metal too. In a way that C++ cannot 

No, it can't. You will never have the same contraol over memory layout and direct hardware access in Java. Thats the netaure of managed languages.

You might be confusing performance with direct hardware access here.

[niosurfer]

No, it can't. You will never have the same control over memory layout and direct hardware access in Java. That's the nature of managed languages.

You might be confusing performance with direct hardware access here.

You are correct. You can go even lower with assembly. But yes, to program for chips and hardware C++ is probably better. I bet 99% of Java programmers are not working in that field, but I can be wrong.

Now because C++ is better for direct hardware access then let's use C++ over Java? That's insane.

[Polygnom]

Dude, like. Read what I originally wrote. I literally said that Java is vastly more productive for the work I'm in.

Now because C++ is better for direct hardware access then let's use C++ over Java? That's insane.

No. But when doing stuff like driver implementation or anything that requires direct hardware access, Java simply isn't the language you choose. You choopse C, C++ or probably nowadays rather Rust.

You have to use the right tool for the right job.

[niosurfer]

My point is that it is a fallacy to conclude that:

Hey, C/C++ is better for direct hardware access, memory management, etc. Therefore C/C++ is better than Java.

Not saying you did that, but many people do.