[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2018-08-06 01:49, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/5/2018 7:28 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2018-08-04 00:28, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> C, C++ or Ada still provide easy HW access and
>>> good real time characteristics, so they will
>>> not go away.
>>
>> I might strongly disagree with this one. With C++, you have no idea 
>> what happens when you do something in the language, making it horrible 
>> for figuring out any sort of real time characteristics.
>>
>> Think classes, inheritance (even multiple inheritance), exceptions and 
>> so on. You create an objects and you have no idea how much code is 
>> executed, or how much memory is required. C++ is in general very much 
>> depending on lots of memory, and a very dynamic memory management 
>> model, which is horrible if we talk embedded and realtime stuff.
>>
>> (But yes, I know C++ is being used by some people for those exact 
>> environments anyway. I can just feel sorry for when, for some 
>> surprising and unknown reason their devices do not work as expected.)
> 
> Compared to languages that use GC then C++ is pretty good in this
> regard.
> 
> :-)

I would disagree. I'd say that is a dangerous thing to think or say, and 
it sortof legitimizes the use of a bad language that have so much 
uncontrolled things going on. Just because it don't use GC isn't enough 
to make it predictable or good in this field. It isn't necessarily any 
better just because it don't have one thing.

If attribute A or B or C makes it a bad tool for an application. A 
language without attribute A is no better than a language without 
attribute B, or a language with attribute A, assuming they all have 
attribute C.

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
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