Re: Why C++ Is Not ???Back???
On 12/12/2012 2:57 PM, Juha Nieminen wrote:
Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> wrote:
Some coding guidelines, similar to the one adopted by Google, explicitly ban
C++ features such as exceptions, templates, inheritance, and even dynamic
memory allocation.
I would show a middle finger to any coding guideline that bans the use
of templates or inheritance.
That is pretty self-reinforcing stuff.
1. You have a codebase that is C++ but mostly plain imperative C, no
RAII or such, and the usual return-code football.
2. Someone picks up using exceptions, that work fine until get mixed
with the old code where suddenly new exit paths cause leaks and other
problems.
3. Realizing the problem you chose to go ahead (RAII-ize the stuff and
make it exitable anywhere) or back (banning the immediate troublemakers.)
4a. You have bright and brave people who can manage the change. Putting
in big effort the codebase gets cleaned up and actually pleasant to work
with. That attracts more bright and brave people ... and eventually you
wake up.
4b. You ban exceptions for starters and roll back the recent improvement
attempt. The codebase become even more old-style. The author of the
change quits, followed by others. Your new hires are limited to similar
thinkers.
5. The codebase works like the usual snowball picking up more of the
same. People who could fix it see no future or fun working on it. The
ones start to have trouble with more and more features, so you start
banning even more.
6. repeat descending cycle from 1