Stroustrup's talk on C++0x

[Jari-Matti Mäkelä]

eao197 wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:35:41 +0400, Jari-Matti Mäkelä
> <jmjmak at utu.fi.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> eao197 wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:36:07 +0400, Bill Baxter
>>> <dnewsgroup at billbaxter.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A lot of you probably saw Bjarne Stroustrup's talk on C++0x on the web.
>>>> If not here's the link:
>>>>    http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/C++0x%20-%20An%20Overview.html
>>>
>>> BTW, there is a C++0x overview in Wikipedia:
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x
>>>
>>> It is iteresting to know which advantages will have D (2.0? 3.0? 4.0?)
>>> over C++0x? May be only high speed compilation and GC.
>>
>> I would put my hopes on the macros, type system and other metaprogramming
>> stuff.
> 
> If someone really need flexible macro- and metaprogramming-subsystem it is
> better to look to Nemerle.

It isn't well suited for system programming.

> 
>> Those are areas in which C++ doesn't really shine.
> 
> IMHO, macro and metaprogramming are areas which C++ simply does not need.
> It is much easyer to write some small codegeneration script in
> Perl/Ruby/Python and include its result into C++ via '#include'.

Is it better for each C++ coder to write his own domain-specific build tool
to solve exactly the same problem than bolt that functionality to the core
language?

> 
>> "We give you all the power to create your own constructs."
> 
> I'm affraid it would lead to another Lisp-like failure: each lisper write
> its own domain-specific language to solve exactly the same problem.

If C++ would have had enough compile time capabilities, many of the new
feature proposals would have been implementable on library level and thus
available to most currently available compilers without much transitioning
costs/delays like now.

What's so bad about DSLs - they're a typical programming idiom in Lisp just
as functions or assignments are in BCPL-like languages. Also, I think the
amount of algorithm implementations for Lisp can be pretty much explained
by the age and popularity of the language. In case you haven't noticed,
there are already 18+ GUI toolkit bindings/implementations (according to
wiki4d) for D and D is 41 years younger than Lisp.