Re: Why use C++?
On Aug 12, 10:11 am, SG <s.gesem...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 6 Aug., 23:00, Miro wrote:
I've made the title too provocative. What I mean is, why use C++ for
small ( > 1000 lines ) coding jobs?
It doesn't make much sense to me as...
C++ syntax requires a lot more typing, debugging and memory,
Compilation time can be irksome,
C++ is devoid of the plethora of features you find on Python, Ruby or
our dear Swiss Army Chainsaw.
Since I just recently wrote a small tool in C++ (around 300 lines of
code) that simply transforms one text-like file to another file, I'll
try to explain why I did this in C++:
- I know C++ well enough and appreciate the higher level
abstractions.
They make this sort of thing fairly easy to write. I don't think a
Python solution to this problem is significantly smaller in terms
of
source code size.
I've yet to see anything that wouldn't be shorter in Python than
in C++. More significantly, it's generally easier to develop
iteratively in an interpreted language, simply because the
turn-around time is much, much shorter. And the "bad"
techniques, like just typing in code without having done any
design, don't really make such a difference in very small
programs. Historically, I've used AWK for anything up to about
500 lines; I've recently shifted to Python (mainly because
Python will be installed on all development machines, where as
there are only three or four of us who have AWK on our Windows
machines).
- I don't know any scripting language well enough to do the job,
although I was planning to get more accustomed to Python
eventually.
- I like static typing. I don't like assigning random sh*t to other
random sh*t and hoping that it all works out at runtime.
It's not a question of "liking": static typing saves you from
all kinds of problems once the program gets a bit bigger.
- C++ doesn't require you to install a VM or interpreter.
But it does require you to install a compiler on the machine you
develope on:-). (Until about two years ago, I worked
exclusively in Unix environments. A shell was always present,
with awk, sed, and the like. Which meant that scripts could be
used portably, without installing anything special.)
--
James Kanze