Stroustrup's talk on C++0x

[Walter Bright]

eao197 wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:05:26 +0400, Walter Bright 
> <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> 
>> eao197 wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> Looks like C++ is adding D features thick & fast!
> 
> Yes! But C++ is doing that without breaking existing codebase. So 
> significant amount of C++ programmers needn't look to D -- they will 
> have new advanced features without dropping their old tools, IDE and 
> libraries.
> 
> I'm affraid that would play against D :(

The trouble with the new features is they don't fix the inscrutably 
awful syntax of complex C++ code, in fact, they make it worse. C++ will 
further become an "experts only" language.


> Current C++ is far behind D, but D is not stable, not mature, not 
> equiped by tools/libraries as C++. So it will took several years to make 
> D competitive with C++ in that area. But if in 2010 (it is only 2.5 year 
> ahead) C++ will have things like lambdas and autos (and tons of 
> libraries and army of programmers), what will be D 'killer feature' to 
> attract C++ programmers? And not only C++, at this time D would compete 
> with new versions of C#, Java, Scala, Nemerle (probably) and with some 
> of functional languages (like Haskell and OCaml).

The C++ standard will have those features. C++ compilers? Who knows. It 
took five years for C++98 to get implemented.

C++'s problems are still in place, though. Like no modules, verbose and 
awkward syntax, very long learning curve, very difficult to do the 
simplest metaprogramming, etc.