Hacker News Reader

The legitimate difference between C and C++ ABIs is that the C ABI is easier to understand and reason about.

It's analogous to Java and Scala; each has an ABI, but it's easier to tell when the former breaks ABI than the latter.

That's right. C being more limited, it has a more simplistic ABI. But the parent comment was replying the "need for a stable, standard ABI, which C provide". Which is misleading as both C++ and C have the same level of stability and standardisation of their ABI. (I.e: none of them is standardized, but both of them are stable on practice)

Yep, you're right.

There is a difference, but the difference is in complexity, not availability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com