On 18/07/2014 14:29, SG wrote:
Apparently, string/buffer manipulation in C is enough of a hassle that
Linus felt the need to create an ABSTRACTION for this. Yes, an
ABSTRACTION. A word that possibly makes Linus think about classes
with virtual functions. ;) Anyhow, providing abstractions is what
good coders do. "Abstraction" does not imply big class hierarchies.
And just like you noticed, such an abstraction for strings and buffers
in C does not buy you as much as what you would get in C++. A C
programmer wold have to resist the temptation to manipulate a strbuf's
internals without going through one of the provided functions in the
strbuf interface. C++ has private for this. Also, a C programmer
using that strbuf abstraction has to pay close attention to the
interface's documentation which says things like "you MUST not do
this", "you HAVE to do this" in some areas IIRC -- including
initialization and deinitialization of such a struct. It's fairly
easy to forget "destruction" of a strbuf thus creating a memory leak.
In C++ that's done with the RAII pattern.
I think the bottom line is that C++ makes most of the coder easier to
make safe code. A very good C programmer surely can do it also with C,
but most of us are not like that, so C++ gives that safety. thats why i
prefer teaching C++ to people who are beginners and are not planning to
go to advanced level.. i think they need safety the most. Effiency is a
secondary, though important as well. But its better to have a bug free
program than a very fast program which has bugs here and there.
In this case, the safety comes without any performance cost. Using the