The Sorry State of C++ Portability by Jeff Wofford

W

woodbrian77

Thanks. I've been wondering about some of the
same things. I'm not sure if this will help me
figure out how to proceed, but it is still
interesting. He also has some interesting
articles about the Bible.
 
J

Jorgen Grahn

The Sorry State of C++ Portability by Jeff Wofford:
http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=1102

Living on the bleeding edge...

I don't know what /your/ angle it, but to me that article says
"Aargh! I choose to use a bleeding-edge revision of C++, and a
compiler I want to use doesn't do it all yet!"

It's wise to make sure you have tool support before you choose
your technology.

/Jorgen
 
J

Jason Benjamin

This comes from a non-C++ dedicant, but what's up with people always
wanting more features and shortcuts when programming? Sounds like he's
spoiled. You can see by the ways he non-casually refers to his A.I. as
"non-trivial" that writing anything that isn't handled by some high
level mechanism is some sort of accomplishment. And I like high level
languages.
 
Ö

Öö Tiib

This comes from a non-C++ dedicant, but what's up with people always
wanting more features and shortcuts when programming? Sounds like he's
spoiled. You can see by the ways he non-casually refers to his A.I. as
"non-trivial" that writing anything that isn't handled by some high
level mechanism is some sort of accomplishment. And I like high level
languages.

I am not sure what you ask here? C++11? It is not shortcuts. C++11 did
leap majorly forward in languages usability and efficiency and safety
and usefulness and completeness of its standard library. Yes, it added
some half-ripe things too. Game A.I.? Non-moronic A.I. is essential
feature of non-boring computer game. Competing against game environment
is boring as soon you realize how to fool it. No wonder he is proud.
If he is saying that lack of support to variadic template parameter
lists in Microsoft compilers is really stopping him in his tracks then
yes, he *is* likely not engineer, perhaps just common breed blogger.
 
J

Jorgen Grahn

The title doesn't fit the article, which is only about how MS Visual Studio
fails to support C++11. And by now MS VS lagging behind, or MS dragging its
feet, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

It surprised /me/, but maybe that's because I don't pay much attention
to what MS does. I was under the impression that they were "on the
bus" this time.

(Perhaps we've forgotten how old-fashioned long release cycles work,
now that we can have a new browser, Linux kernel, gcc, etc once a
week?)

/Jorgen
 
R

Rui Maciel

Jorgen said:
It surprised /me/, but maybe that's because I don't pay much attention
to what MS does. I was under the impression that they were "on the
bus" this time.

(Perhaps we've forgotten how old-fashioned long release cycles work,
now that we can have a new browser, Linux kernel, gcc, etc once a
week?)

I don't believe it has anything to do with long release cycles. For
example, although Microsoft directly participates in the revision processo
for the C standard for years now, the company even fails to support C99. If
you are the world's largest software company and you fail to support a
standard that you helped shape even after a decade has passed, and in the
process you've managed to churn out multiple incantations of an operating
system, it's quite clear that it is an unwillingness issue.


Rui Maciel
 
S

Stuart

Am 10/30/12 2:27 AM, schrieb Lynn McGuire:
The Sorry State of C++ Portability by Jeff Wofford:
http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=1102

Living on the bleeding edge...

Lynn

The author of this page states that "[...] variadic templates are
tremendously helpful for building scriptable C++ objects and
introspection systems, [...]". That's very interesting since the only
use cases for variadic templates that I have encountered so far deal
with a more sophisticated version of printf (as if C++ did not already
offer IOstreams for that very purpose). I'd be quite interested in how
variadic templates allow for introspection, but I'm afraid that the
author will not shared his insights with us.

Stuart
 
M

Martin Ba

...

... For
example, although Microsoft directly participates in the revision processo
for the C standard for years now, the company even fails to support C99. If
you are the world's largest software company and you fail to support a
standard that you helped shape even after a decade has passed, and in the
process you've managed to churn out multiple incantations of an operating
system, it's quite clear that it is an unwillingness issue.

Just out of curiosity - who actually needs (full) C99 on Windows?

cheers,
Martin
 
C

Cholo Lennon

That article should have been called "The Sorry State of Microsoft's C++

Compiler".

.... written by a silly guy who want to use the very new C++ features in a cross platform production code without checking its availability in all involved compilers... OMG!
 
B

Bo Persson

Jorgen Grahn skrev 2012-11-01 22:50:
It surprised /me/, but maybe that's because I don't pay much attention
to what MS does. I was under the impression that they were "on the
bus" this time.

(Perhaps we've forgotten how old-fashioned long release cycles work,
now that we can have a new browser, Linux kernel, gcc, etc once a
week?)

/Jorgen

I think they just made a terrible mistake in their priority, similar to
what they did 10 years ago, when VC++ 2002 with managed extensions flopped.

The reports say that MS started to implement key C++11 features like
variadic templates, but never finished because of lack of resources.

"Fortunately" they just had enough time to implement support for Windows
8, Windows RT, and the entirely new (and totally unasked for) C++/CX.


Bo Persson
 
W

Werner

... written by a silly guy who want to use the very new C++ features in a cross platform production code without checking its availability in all involved compilers... OMG!

The best way to learn something new is to start using it.
Not so silly... I would think. Visionary, perhaps.
 
W

woodbrian77

Jorgen Grahn skrev 2012-11-01 22:50:







I think they just made a terrible mistake in their priority, similar to

what they did 10 years ago, when VC++ 2002 with managed extensions flopped.



The reports say that MS started to implement key C++11 features like

variadic templates, but never finished because of lack of resources.

I've wondered about their priorities also. I wouldn't
mind if they didn't get the variadics until later but
wish they had support for some of the other new parts
of the language.

"Fortunately" they just had enough time to implement support for Windows

8, Windows RT, and the entirely new (and totally unasked for) C++/CX.

I think the operating system work must seem like a better
investment than C++ stuff.
 
N

Nobody

But using something before checking whether it is supported on a target
platform is!

It isn't clear whether some version of Windows was originally considered
as a target platform, or if he just decided to try porting to Windows
as an afterthought (the main target platform appears to be iOS).
 
J

Jorgen Grahn

I don't believe it has anything to do with long release cycles. For
example, although Microsoft directly participates in the revision processo
for the C standard for years now, the company even fails to support C99.

I'm aware of that, but I got the impression they were serious about C++.
There are many failure modes in a large company; this doesn't have to
be C99 all over again.
If you are the world's largest software company and you fail to support a
standard that you helped shape even after a decade has passed, and in the
process you've managed to churn out multiple incantations of an operating
system, it's quite clear that it is an unwillingness issue.

You could call it unwillingless I guess ... but don't overestimate the
power of Microsoft. I suspect their group of compiler people is
rather small and isolated from the rest, and the core who know what
they're /doing/ is even smaller. You can't just throw people at the
problem ("hey, Bob from the Excel team is free; let's put him on C++
lambdas!") so you have to prioritize.

/Jorgen
 
J

Jorgen Grahn

Anyone who writes C programs that need to run on MS Windows.

And the rest of us, so coworkers can't say "C99 is irrelevant, not
even Microsoft implement it!"

(Relevance for C++: some C99 features makes the language much more
tolerable for people used to C++.)

/Jorgen
 

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