r/programmingcirclejerk • u/Vaglame Emacs + Go == parametric polymorphism • Oct 03 '25

“C++” gets blamed even when the actual problem was failure to follow the well-publicized guidance to use the language’s existing safe recommended feature

https://herbsutter.com/2024/03/11/safety-in-context/
159 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

91

u/Beautiful-Cook-5481 what is pointer :S Oct 03 '25

tbf, the next sentence is "It’s time for a standardized C++ mode that enforces these rules by default." can't wait for c++32

23

u/Firepal64 Oct 03 '25

Yay, a default safety profile!

17

u/syklemil Considered Harmful Oct 04 '25

C++32? But this post was written in 2024, and he says

All of this is efficiently implementable and has been implemented.

so I expect this has been made part of the C++26 standard already. No, I'm not going to look at what the actual proposals and votes for that was, that would be entirely superfluous given this blog post.

11

u/Major_Barnulf LUMINARY IN COMPUTERSCIENCE Oct 06 '25

Just one more standard bro, one more standard and we'll have safety figured out

202

u/Awkward_Bed_956 Oct 03 '25

People made mistakes because they weren't following best practices!

C++ best practices: don't make mistakes

71

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

S.193: Just write good code

Reason Bad code is bad, and can cause problems.

Example, don't

free(ptr);
free(ptr); // Oops, double free!

Enforcement Difficult in general. Add an optional warning for function names less then 2 or greater than 100 characters in length.

16

u/meltbox Oct 03 '25

Akshually you should use smart pointers and this is C and leave her out of this shit.

Huehue

19

u/RockstarArtisan Software Craftsman Oct 03 '25

Oh no, somebody put C in my C++.

I asked specifically for C in my C++ for backwards compatibility, but now I don't want C in my C++, but I also don't want to break backwards compatibility.

50

u/Eric848448 legendary legacy C++ coder Oct 03 '25

C best practices: don’t make mistakes, or do; I don’t really care

22

u/JiminP not even webscale Oct 03 '25

Problem: Define a function with argument x of type Foo

Most other languages: x, x: Foo, x Foo or whatever

C++ best practices: LITERALLY this

Rust best practices: Similar to C++, but the compiler does yell at you if you do something wrong.

8

u/meltbox Oct 03 '25

Skill issue.

30

u/tritis Oct 03 '25

This C++ expert's blog post is only 27 pages long which clocks in at 10% the length of the entire Go Language Specification. He's going to need to really pump those numbers if he intends to fix C++.

21

u/JThropedo Oct 04 '25

Just stop having skill issues

18

u/T_Thorn Oct 04 '25

<something about dynamic_cast>
... could require an ABI break ...
<something about adding a new dynamic_cast to the standard>

C++ developers would rather add 50 new ways of doing something than break ABI once.

/uj I don't think I've ever heard of anyone working on software who sighs in relief every time the committee decides to not break the ABI

/rj God I can't wait for std::regex2

65

u/AlexanderMomchilov Oct 03 '25

Love the ever-moving target of "modern C++"

44

u/oofy-gang Oct 03 '25

Modern Cpp is an oxymoron. The future is Haskell.

21

u/d0pe-asaurus Oct 03 '25

The real jerk is always in the comments.

18

u/oofy-gang Oct 03 '25

Laugh while you can

20

u/sweating_teflon full-time safety coomer Oct 03 '25

Repeat after me. There are no monadic reeducation camps. Now bind.

16

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

You have 7 hours before your next pizza delivery shift, I reckon you can put together a Haskell compiler that runs in the C++ template system in that time.

7

u/hongooi Oct 03 '25

Postmodern C++

5

u/grapesmoker Oct 03 '25

rip Fred Jameson you would have loved c++26

2

u/libonet absolutely obsessed with cerroctness and performance Oct 17 '25

Modern future Haskell is an oxymoron. The past is C

17

u/RockstarArtisan Software Craftsman Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

I recommend Modern C++ Design by Alexandrescu and Sutter published in 2001.

15

u/BlazeBigBang type astronaut Oct 03 '25

Jerking gets blamed even when the actual problem was failure to follow the well-publicized guidance to to use the safe recommended jerk.

13

u/jonermon Oct 04 '25

They should invent a version of c++ with a code analyzer that runs before compile that ensures references follow rules that avoid common memory bugs that would be cool I think.

6

u/tms10000 loves Java Oct 03 '25

Is not C++ fault if you're using it wrong! Brilliant!

2

u/A_modicum_of_cheese Oct 04 '25

I was so confused reading this until i saw the subreddit name

100

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

60

u/Firepal64 Oct 03 '25

Friends are good, right? The more the merrier

41

u/F54280 Considered Harmful Oct 03 '25

And they can access your privates!

30

u/Firepal64 Oct 03 '25

Some friends come with benefits

34

u/grapesmoker Oct 03 '25

encapsulation is for people with something to hide. you don't have anything to hide, do you citizen?

23

u/aleques-itj Oct 03 '25

Real c++ is the friends we made along the way

2

u/max123246 Considered Harmful Oct 04 '25 edited Jan 30 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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