[Info-vax] Clang

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/16/2022 9:13 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-11-16, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
>> Den 2022-11-16 kl. 03:51, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>> On 11/15/2022 9:42 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> I'm curious.  While I don't know diddly about C++, I'm wondering about
>>>> all the rather often upgrades to the standard.  Was it that bad to begin
>>>> with?  Does it really need such constant upgrades?
>>>
>>> It is common for actively maintained languages to get
>>> new versions with new features every 12/24/36 months.
>>>
>>> To stay competitive C++ needs to evolve with the rest.
>>
>> Why does C++ (or C) need to "stay competitive"?
> 
> There are some things that are a good idea to add, but don't forget that
> one possible driver is that it's in the personal interests of the people
> on the language committee to continue to "appear relevant". That means
> there may be motivation to add features that might not be really required to
> continue to show their current and future employers how "important" they are.
> 
> The employers also have a vested interest in continuing to see updated
> versions of the language standards so they can sell updated compilers.
> 
>> If there are better tools to do the same job, why not use them instead?
> 
> Sacrilege!!! You can't have that kind of reasonable talk around here. :-)
> 
>> Is this some kind of competition between languages?
> 
> Yes. Unfortunately. (And we all pay the price as a result. :-( )

There is a general line of thinking that more features are better.

So actively maintained languages tend to grow.

That is the reality.

I don't agree. I believe that simplicity is one of the
most important aspects of a programming language.

I would divide enhancements in 3 categories:

A) huge changes that impact the nature of the language
    like adding a new programming paradigm - given that
    I believe history shows like 1/3 success, 1/3 maybe ok
    and 1/3 failure, then I am skeptical about adding such
    changes - if there is a need for the new features then
    pick a newer language that supports them

B) smaller changes that are useful for the majority of users -
    those actually makes sense to me because that is a healthy
    evolution

C) smaller changes that are useful possible very useful for only
    a small fraction of users while irrelevant for the majority
    of users - those does not make sense to me as there are
    so many potential features and adding them all will make the
    language super bloated, the minority can use a library
    function or see if they can find a language with their pet
    feature

Arne