Stroustrup's talk on C++0x

[eao197]

On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:34:14 +0400, Don Clugston <dac at nospam.com.au> wrote:

> If you get 500 compile errors you need to fix, that's annoying and  
> tedious.

If you get 500 compile errors in old 10KLOC project its annoying.
If you would get 500 compile errors in each of tens of legacy projects  
that is much more that simply 'annoying and tedious'.

> But when your code uses a technique that still works, but isn't  
> supported by recent libraries, you're locked into the past forever.

There is a good example in C++ world: the ACE library. It has been started  
a long time ago, it has been ported to various systems, it outlived many  
changes in the language and suffered from different compilers. Because of  
that ACE use C++ almost as "C++ with classes", even without usage of  
exceptions. In comparision with modern C++ (over)designed libraries (like  
Crypto++ or parts of Boost) ACE is an ugly old monster. But it has no real  
competitors in C++ and it allow me to write complex software more easyly  
than if I try to write part of ACE on modern C++ myself. So I don't think  
that old ACE library look me in the past (even if I can't use STL and  
exceptions with ACE).

IMHO, the real power of any language is its code base -- all projects  
which have been developed using the language. And any actions which  
descriminate legacy code lead to decreasing the language's power.

-- 
Regards,
Yauheni Akhotnikau