Hacker News Reader

Comment by WoodTree | Hacker News Reader

Complex languages don’t result in better programs. Else we would see Scala and C++ everywhere instead of them being relegated to narrow niches.

View on HN

C++ is not a narrow niche. We do see it pretty much everywhere and it continues to be the most used language for systems programming, games, embedded systems, and pretty much anything else where performance is critical.

That is a niche, because most applications are IO bound and not compute bound. What even qualifies as “systems programming” is ill defined. Far more critical business systems run on Java and C# servers than C++. If there are C++ components they tend to be small parts along the critical path and not the primary implementation language.

I disagree with the notion that most applications are IO bound only. This is something people often say uncritically, but in my experience is false. Just using a non-native Electron or even Java application feels very sluggish and when you look at the Waterfall on slow web pages, what's slowing it down is very often unrelated to "I/O".

Secondly, C/C++ is like the third or fourth most commonly listed programming language in job listings. If you think all but 2 or 3 languages are niche, that is not what the word means.

C/C++ is not a language. I am also someone who has use C and C++ for years as part of my work and have mostly moved on to TypeScript because there isn’t much reason to use C or C++ anymore unless you are in one of those niches where you need to still program at that level.

Most software problems are not about solving them faster, it’s about combining existing components in new ways and figuring out to orchestrate it all.

I don’t care about copy elision, heap fragmentation, perfect forwarding, when my performance is being lost in the communication between services. What I need is a better architecture and more scaling, not concerning myself with if this loop is being vectorized, or that object is being moved instead of copied, and other minutia which inevitably ends up wasting your time when writing C++.

I don't necessarily disagree that not everything needs to be optimized for performance, but I would just argue that the use cases for Typescript are far more niche than the use cases for C++. There's more to software than just web stuff

Most stuff is web stuff now. And I’m not talking about front end, we do a lot of back end work in TypeScript because node is lighter than the JVM which makes it a better choice for lambdas. I’d say it also has more sophisticated static typing than Java or C++, while also allowing dynamic typing in the few cases where it is convenient. Having the front and back end written in the same language also reduces impedance between teams. A lot of our tooling is even written in it now, deprecating many Ruby scripts.

Most stuff is not web now. There is software in everything everywhere not just web sites.

Niche does not mean "stuff I don't personally use at my job", but that is the only definition under which Typecript is not niche and c++ is. C++ in 2019 had the 4th most job listings according to Indeed. Calling that a niche is absurd especially in comparison to Typescript.

The thing about C++ is that you need to recruit specifically for C++ programmers in a way that you don’t need to recruit for programmers in many other languages. The barrier of entry for C++ is high enough that you can’t just take your typical developer and ask them to write good C++, it’s a language which requires far more effort to become competent in.

There are also many places which just ask for Java/C++ experience for no apparent reason. Amazon is like this, all of their job listings mention C++ but only a very small percentage of the code base is in C++. There is at least 10 times as much Ruby code and it is part of systems that most engineers will have to work with, but no job application mentions that.

"most applications are IO bound" - there is a whole world of not IO bound software running on cars, toasters, airplanes, desktops, hospital equipment etc etc. I do not think it is any smaller then that niche of web spaghetti being churned out by undergrads

You know, there are things in between. As for being niche - not sure bout Scala as I have zero experience with it, C++ however is anything but.

c++ is in narrow niches?!

Java killed it for general purpose use in the 90s. It’s never your first option unless you are in areas like games, graphics, some embedded work, or quantitative trading.

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

The Romans or the Chinese?

For reference this is just a silly quote from Monty Python's Life of Brain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com