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LLVM 3.0 releasedLLVM 3.0 releasedPosted Dec 8, 2011 8:27 UTC (Thu) by thedevil (subscriber, #32913)In reply to: LLVM 3.0 released by daglwn Parent article: LLVM 3.0 released
"C++ allows a kind of expressivity not achieved before nor since by any other language"
Extremely dubious. I am sure you can come up with examples (both before and after) yourself.
To make it even close you'd need to add a qualifier like "... that is mostly compatible with C". Even then it is not a closed case.
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LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 9, 2011 16:48 UTC (Fri) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
What other language aggregates inheritance, exceptions, fully generic programming and pattern matching AND specifies their interactions completely?
None that I know of. Not even without the "compatible with C" qualifier. Perhaps there is an esoteric project somewhere that does this but certainly no other mainstream language. C++ doesn't have every language feature possible but it does have a unique combination of them.
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2011 3:33 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
"D" does this and has much more powerful metaprogramming system.
Alas, no real manual memory management.
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 12, 2011 4:20 UTC (Mon) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
D isn't exactly mainstream, but I'll grant that it has some great ideas. Forced garbage collection is a huge drawback as you point out.
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 10, 2011 9:33 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
Vala does everything that I like from C++, without C++s innumerable odd cornercases or legacy cruft/baggage.
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 12, 2011 4:18 UTC (Mon) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
Vala is certainly interesting, but it doesn't do everything C++ does, even ignoring the legacy stuff. I know it may not be stuff that you need but it is stuff I use a lot. For example, there is no true multiple inheritance in Vala. There's no pattern matching of generic classes, hence no metaprogramming. There's not complete static typing, which IMHO is a huge loss when trying to use a language for very large projects.
Vala is cool. I definitely see the value in it. But it isn't a replacement for C++.
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 12, 2011 7:17 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
Vala does have multiple inheritance, or at least I don't see how its mixins are fundamentally any different:
http://live.gnome.org/Vala/Tutorial#Interfaces_.2BAC8_Mixins
Vala has generics. I'm not sure what aspect of C++ templates you miss, but I sure don't miss the multiple-pages or more of incomprehensible error messages that are inherent to even minor mistakes with C++ templates. ;)
Vala is statically typed, not sure why you'd think otherwise (it allows type inference of LHS in assignments with "var x = y;" - a handy convenience, and still statically typed).
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 12, 2011 10:11 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] As that page describes it, Vala allows you to inherit at most one class and any number of interfaces (and the page explicitly says that it's a restricted form of multiple inheritance). C++ allows you to inherit multiple concrete classes. (It happens to be the case that I've never encountered a case where I thought I had a reason to use this capability, but I am not every C++ programmer.)
LLVM 3.0 released Posted Dec 12, 2011 10:38 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
So, it's perhaps a little hidden away in one sentence of the last paragraph of that interface/mixin section, but Vala interfaces may contain concrete implementations. I.e. Vala has multiple inheritance - the only difference in Vala is that the classes being inherited from must mark themselves as being comfortable with that (not a fundamental difference).
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