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0 pointsJonChesterfield11mo ago0 comments

I blame the "we won't recompile anything ever" stance from the financial organisations for the breakdown. It means C++ cannot fix mistakes, even when they harm performance, under the general name of "abi stability".

Thus there is an opening for a faster language. And still for a safer one. And for an easier one to use. So all C++ has going for it is inertia. It's moribund unless the committee reconsider their stance on intentionally losing the performance competition.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

Buttons84011mo ago· 4 in thread

Will Carbon improve the ABI situation? Will Carbon be easier to interface with from other languages?

A major role that C plays today is being the common protocol all languages speak[0]. C++ can't fill this role, and neither can Rust.

There is a huge opportunity for some language to become the next common protocol, the common ABI, that all languages share in common.

(Maybe Rust could do this, but they haven't stabilized their ABI yet, and I don't the details.)

[0]: https://faultlore.com/blah/c-isnt-a-language/

Gibbon111mo ago

I remember reading that google tried to impress on WG21 and 14 the need to update the ABI and they were utterly opposed. The result is google is no longer interested in C++. Apple I think is also no longer interested in C++. I think also Swift now has a stable ABI.

JonChesterfieldOP11mo ago

A good write up of that is at https://cor3ntin.github.io/posts/abi/

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IshKebab11mo ago

Well it's not really C that fills that role it's the C ABI which any language can use without an ounce of C. Rust can use the C ABI.

It would be nice if there was a somewhat higher level ABI that languages could use though. The C ABI is very low level and tedious.

josh11b10mo ago

Carbon is performance-first, so ABI instability is the default. We plan to have opt-in ABI stability, but that story is not well developed yet. Replacing C as the lingua franca is not a goal, at least not yet.

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