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Comment by nickpp | Hacker News Reader

Reality, however, contradicts you. C++ is one of the only languages out there PROVEN in the field by being used in thousands of large-scale developments.

Operating Systems, Office applications, Browsers, Search Engines, etc. - aren't these large scale?!

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You forgot that C++ is used in Jet Fighters, and other little inconsequential things such as that ;)

cite: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/JSF-AV-rules.pdf

Edit... not just any jet fighter, but the most complex jet fighter ever devised by the mind of mankind. That's why C++ kicks ass ;)

Linux C, BSD C, really I can't think of a truly large stable system written in C++. There are plenty written in C.

Edit: Thanks, I didn't know there was a C++ OS out there. Though to be fair to C++ it hasn't been around as long nor been as stable as C (from C with classes to C with classes exceptions and templates.)

Symbian OS is written in C++, excluding some internals of the kernel written in C/ARM assembly. I was told when I worked there (3-4 years ago) that the entire code base (including test code, variant code etc.) is on the order of 50 million lines of code. So definitely large. Stable? A matter of opinion.

Try Cobol. Or C. Or Assembler. Or Fortran. Those languages are also used in large projects since ages. But what does that tell us?

Tells us that they are mature, strong, proven programming languages and we should use them in large-scale developement UNLESS we have a better alternative, ALSO mature, strong and proven. Thankfully, we do: C++

Your argument could be used to prove Java superior to C++, too.

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