Heartbleed and static analysis

[Dicebot]

On Sunday, 13 April 2014 at 15:17:30 UTC, Klaim - Joël Lamotte 
wrote:
> I don't understand what is the C++ fault when the management of 
> the project
> forces people to
> write shit. The same situation would have happen with any 
> language and a
> full rewrite by a fixed team
> would have been better whatever the new language.
> I've heard the same story with Java, C# and Python in the last 
> few years.
> Always management fault.
>
> I'm not sure I understand the arguments against C++ in your 
> examples, in
> particular if you use D which have destructors and "magic" too.

C++ fault is that it makes very easy even for experienced 
programmer to write faulty code and consequences of a mistake can 
be rather dire. C has similar issues but C is much smaller and 
simpler language which allows to keep all possible danger points 
in mind. I have yet to meet a single C++ programmer who can 
remember about all corner cases at the same time. I am not sure 
even Bjorne himself can.

D makes situation much better by refining base semantics to 
adhere "safe by default, fast when explicitly asked" principle 
(array bounds checks, default initialization of locals). It is 
still not 100% consistent but greatly reduces stress of the 
context comparing to C++.

I'd still prefer C++ over C for most projects but only if using 
very small well-defined  subset of C++ verified by static 
analysis tool continuously.