Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee [LWN.net]

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 22, 2010 11:43 UTC (Wed) by cmccabe (guest, #60281)
In reply to: Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee by HelloWorld
Parent article: Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

> The funny thing is that you wrote the rebuttal to this statement yourself
> only a few lines later: "There are numerous examples of vtables in the
> Linux kernel".

I think we both know that the real question is not how many X the Linux kernel source has, but how many X per lines of code. By that measure, vtables are used sparingly and tastefully.

> Limiting the language in order to prevent programmers from writing bad
> code never worked and it never will, since bad programmers will find other
> ways to write a bad program. On the other hand, you're making life harder
> for the people who are able to use advanced features in the language
> sensibly. This looks like a very bad tradeoff to me.

My point wasn't about limiting the language. I think we all know that C can be used to do anything C++ can do, and vice versa. The question is, what does the feature set of the language encourage you to do? Is it in good taste? Does it encourage you to write things in a readable way, or in an unnecessarily complex and formal way? Do the features work well together, or are there some that can't safely be used in combination (or even separately?)

> [snip discussion of virtual function calls in base constructor/destructor]

Congrats, you know the solution to this one. Now be careful, because the behavior is different in Java and C#.

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Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 22, 2010 14:43 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

To be fair, non-virtual methods are, we now know, extremely dangerous and inconsistent with the type-safety of inheritance (some of which was developed with and even after the development of C++). That C++ even allows them is perhaps a historical curiosity. One of a number of misfeatures in C++, where new language features were added before they were fully understood, leaving vestigial dangers waiting to trip up programmers. I like the other commentator's description of C++ being "the awkward, error-prone adolescence of higher-level languages".

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 25, 2010 4:46 UTC (Sat) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] (1 responses)

> To be fair, non-virtual methods are, we now know, extremely dangerous [...]. That C++ even allows them is perhaps a historical curiosity.

Absolutely not a historical curiosity! I can't imagine using a C++-like language that didn't allow non-virtual members. Being able to do OOP with *zero* runtime overhead is a killer feature!

There's certainly place in the world for languages like Python too (which I do like, despite its horrific slowness), but C++ without non-virtual methods would just be sad.

Apache resigns from the Java Community Process executive committee

Posted Dec 25, 2010 10:50 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

It's a killer feature in terms of weird bugs, yes. If non-virtual methods were also not overridable, then perhaps it'd be a useful thing...