linux-os (Dick Johnson) wrote:
On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, J.A. Magallon wrote:
On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:52:12 +0100, Alan Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
On Llu, 2006-04-24 at 15:36 -0600, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
C++ in the kernel is a BAD IDEA. C++ code can be written in such a
convoluted manner as to be unmaintainable and unreadable.
So can C.
All of the hidden memory allocations from constructor/destructor
operatings can and do KILL OS PERFORMANCE.
This is one area of concern. Just as big a problem for the OS case is
that the hidden constructors/destructors may fail.
Tell me what is the difference between:
...clear readable code...
and
SuperBlock() : s_mount_opt(0), s_resuid(EXT3_DEF_RESUID), s_resgid(EXT3_DEF_RESGID)
{}
...double bagger...
I'd like to write modules in FORTRAN, myself. Unless you have been
writing software since computers were programmed with diode-pins, one
tends to think that the first programming language learned is the
best. It's generally because they are all bad, and once you learn how
to make the defective language do what you want, you tend to identify
with it. Identifying with one's captors, the Stockholm syndrome,
that's what these languages cause.
No, I wouldn't touch any of the early languages I learned, the first one
I liked was ALGOL-60. The software for GE's first CT scanner was
developed in ALGOL-60. I liked PL/1 when GE was part of the MULTICS
project, and the whole BCPL->B->C family was fun, although I do like C
best. GE had an implementation language called I-language which was a
great system language, but they buried it instead of releasing it. I
hated FORTRAN, LISP and APL, although I wrote a lot of each, predicted
that Ada would not be popular, but I like PERL. I wrote text tools in
TRAC (look that one up ;-) but that's kind of all it did well.
If you hadn't made this next point I would have...
But, a master carpenter has many tools. He chooses the best for each
task. When you need to make computer hardware do what you want, in
a defined manner, in the particular order in which you require,
you use assembly language to generate the exact machine-code required.
It is possible to compromise a bit and use a slightly higher-level
procedural language called C. One loses control of everything with
any other language. Note that before C was invented, all operating
system code was written in assembly.
Hate to tell you, C came about a decade after MULTICS was written in
PL/1, and I think DEC had VMS out in BLISS before C. C came from B (as
did IMP68), which came from BCPL.
C++ wasn't written for this kind of work. It was written so that a
programmer didn't have to care how something was done only that somehow
it would get done. Also, as you peel away the onion skins from many
C++ graphics libraries, you find inside the core that does the work.
It's usually written in C.
C++ allows more abstraction than C, unfortunately too many people go
right past past abstraction to obfuscation. With operator overloading
it's possible to generate write-only code, and programs where "A=B+C"
does file operations :-( That doesn't belong in an operating system, C
is the right choice.
Sorry for the history lesson, you got me thinking about my first languages.
--
-bill davidsen ([email protected])
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
last possible moment - but no longer" -me
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