Re: C++ pushback

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>]

On Wed, 26 Apr 2006, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> 
> There's one _practical_ thing you need to keep in mind: you'll either
> need 'C++'-clean kernel headers (to interface low-level kernel
> functions) or a separate set of headers.

I suspect it would be easier to just do

	extern "C" {
	#include <linux/xyz.h>
	...
	}

instead of having anything really C++'aware in the headers.

If by "clean" you meant that the above works, then yeah, there might be 
_some_ cases where we use C++ keywords etc in the headers, but they should 
be pretty unusual and easy to fix.

The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is:

 - the language just sucks. Sorry, but it does.
 - some of the C features we use may or may not be usable from C++ 
   (statement expressions?)
 - the compilers are slower, and less reliable. This is _less_ of an issue 
   these days than it used to be (at least the reliability part), but it's 
   still true.
 - a lot of the C++ features just won't be supported sanely (ie the kernel 
   infrastructure just doesn't do exceptions for C++, nor will it run any 
   static constructors etc).

Anyway, it should all be doable. Not necessarily even very hard. But I 
doubt it's worth it.

		Linus
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