Linux programming, is there any C++?

[=?iso-8859-1?q?Tom=E1s_=D3_h=C9ilidhe?=]

I'm kind of new to Linux and I've started downloading applications and
installing them. Applications are distributed as source code in a
".tar.gz" file. You unzip the file, navigate to the directory, run
"configure" , then run "make", then run "make install".

Anyway, in all the programs I've seen, there's only ever been .c files, and
it looks like only gcc has been invoked. Do people in the Linux community
not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

--
Tomás Ó hÉilidhe

[Rolf Magnus]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Tomás Ó hÉilidhe wrote:

I'm kind of new to Linux and I've started downloading applications and
installing them. Applications are distributed as source code in a
".tar.gz" file. You unzip the file, navigate to the directory, run
"configure" , then run "make", then run "make install".
>
Anyway, in all the programs I've seen, there's only ever been .c files,
and it looks like only gcc has been invoked. Do people in the Linux
community not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

They do. Many libraries are written in C, so they can be easier used with
other languages.

[Roland Pibinger]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:09:27 GMT,
"=?iso-8859-1?q?Tom=E1s_=D3 _h=C9ilidhe?=" wrote:

>Do people in the Linux community
>not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

C++ never had much weight in the Unix world because it violates the
basic Unix philosophy:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s07.html

--
Roland Pibinger
"The best software is simple, elegant, and full of drama" - Grady Booch

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Tomás Ó hÉilidhe wrote:

I'm kind of new to Linux and I've started downloading applications and
installing them. Applications are distributed as source code in a
".tar.gz" file. You unzip the file, navigate to the directory, run
"configure" , then run "make", then run "make install".
>
Anyway, in all the programs I've seen, there's only ever been .c files, and
it looks like only gcc has been invoked. Do people in the Linux community
not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

C and Unix have a lot of history together. C was invented specifically
to write Unix, and remains the lingua franca for linking object files
compiled from different source languages.

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Roland Pibinger wrote:

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:09:27 GMT,
"=?iso-8859-1?q?Tom=E1s_=D3 _h=C9ilidhe?=" wrote:

>Do people in the Linux community
>not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

>
C++ never had much weight in the Unix world because it violates the
basic Unix philosophy:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/ta...l/ch01s07.html

I don't think C++ violates KISS. C++ is certainly a more complicated
language than C, but that does not imply that applications will be
correspondingly more complex; in fact, the reverse seems to be true most
of the time. C++ provides language features that help keep client code
simple.

C++ happened to hit the scene a little later than C, but was developed
at Bell Labs mainly for use on Unix. Plenty of modern Unix applications
are written in C++, including those developed by Unix industry
consortia. Dominant desktop environments, including CDE and KDE, are
written in C++. Some of the most popular languages used on Unix servers
today, including Java and Ruby, are written in a sort of hybrid between
C and C++.

I personally love both Unix and C++. I use C for device drivers, but
prefer C++ for user-space applications. What's great about C is that
the language is so simple (for the amount of power it gives you) that it
is often the first HLL for which compilers are available on new
platforms. What's great about C++ is that it plays well with very
low-level code, but provides excellent support for arbitrarily
high-level abstractions.

[Ian Collins]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Jeff Schwab wrote:

>
I personally love both Unix and C++. I use C for device drivers, but
prefer C++ for user-space applications.

Why make that distinction? Provided you avoid language features that
require run time support, C++ is an excellent language for drivers.

--
Ian Collins.

[Phil Endecott]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Tomás Ó hÉilidhe wrote:

I'm kind of new to Linux and I've started downloading applications and
installing them. Applications are distributed as source code in a
".tar.gz" file. You unzip the file, navigate to the directory, run
"configure" , then run "make", then run "make install".
>
Anyway, in all the programs I've seen, there's only ever been .c files, and
it looks like only gcc has been invoked. Do people in the Linux community
not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

Go to freshmeat.net, click "browse", then "programmin g language" under
"browse by" [at this point you'll notice that it reports ~8000 C
projects and ~4000 C++ projects], click C++, then "pick a filter to
add", "operating system :: POSIX :: linux". (Note that much so-called
Linux software will actually run on many platforms, so it may not be
catalogued as precisely as the Linux category here.)

Most peculiarly, the first item in the results is the Linux kernel!
Someone is having a joke there... Then you'll see the expected projects
like OpenOffice and a few thousand more.


Phil.

[Ian Collins]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Jeff Schwab wrote:

Ian Collins wrote:

>Jeff Schwab wrote:

>>I personally love both Unix and C++. I use C for device drivers, but
>>prefer C++ for user-space applications.

>>
>Why make that distinction? Provided you avoid language features that
>require run time support, C++ is an excellent language for drivers.

>
If I ever gave a client a Unix device driver written in C++, I'd be told
to re-write it. (I know this for a face, since I've suggested it.) The
problem is that the overwhelming majority of people who professionally
write Unix device drivers are far more comfortable with C then C++, so
maintenance of a C++ driver on Unix is potentially much more expensive.
>

Fair enough, I've only ever had to supply binary drivers. A large
proportion of C drivers I've seen (especially NIC drivers) tend to be
written in pseudo OO C.

--
Ian Collins.

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Ian Collins wrote:

Jeff Schwab wrote:

>Ian Collins wrote:

>>Jeff Schwab wrote:
>>>I personally love both Unix and C++. I use C for device drivers, but
>>>prefer C++ for user-space applications.
>>Why make that distinction? Provided you avoid language features that
>>require run time support, C++ is an excellent language for drivers.

>If I ever gave a client a Unix device driver written in C++, I'd be told
>to re-write it. (I know this for a face, since I've suggested it.) The
>problem is that the overwhelming majority of people who professionally
>write Unix device drivers are far more comfortable with C then C++, so
>maintenance of a C++ driver on Unix is potentially much more expensive.
>>

Fair enough, I've only ever had to supply binary drivers. A large
proportion of C drivers I've seen (especially NIC drivers) tend to be
written in pseudo OO C.

Yep. Have you seen the C-language object model used by the BSD kernel?
There's so much preprocessor magic, it's almost like learning a new
language. It's hard to believe that it wouldn't be easier just to make
the jump to C++.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/kernel-objects-using.html

[Matthias Buelow]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Jeff Schwab wrote:

but provides excellent support for arbitrarily high-level abstractions.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^

Please elaborate.

[peter koch]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

On 18 Feb., 18:58, Matthias Buelow <m...@incubus.d ewrote:

Jeff Schwab wrote:

but provides excellent support for arbitrarily high-level abstractions.

>
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
>
Please elaborate.

Jeff would have to respond to the "arbitraril y" part, but just take a
look at e.g. the boost or the standard C++ library, where quite
complex constructs exist to make life simple for the developer.
For one example, there's all the collections in the standard library
together with the algorithms give a quite rich environment to work in.
Another example is a library such as Blitz, that allows numerical code
to be written in a notation that corresponds almost perfectly to the
matematical one, but still gives optimal performance.
My third and last example is spirit that allows you to write parsers
directly in the source code, describing the language in something that
is very close to BNF.

/Peter

[Matthias Buelow]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

James Kanze wrote:

the
time invested in doing so is paid back enormously in increased
productivity.

Hmm. Actually, I was a lot more productive in C than I am now in C++
(which I do for money). I also have been more productive with the C++ of
15 years ago. This is unsurprising. In trying to fix the language, it
gets more and more broken, piling workaround upon workaround, making it
a discombombulate d mess that is exceptionally hard to use and boggles
the mind with every new detail investigated. I don't think the language
can be fixed at all. Best to bury it in a quiet part of the garden.
Anyway, back to programming.

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Matthias Buelow wrote:

James Kanze wrote:
>

>the
>time invested in doing so is paid back enormously in increased
>productivity .

>
Hmm. Actually, I was a lot more productive in C than I am now in C++
(which I do for money). I also have been more productive with the C++ of
15 years ago.

What is it that you could do then, that you can't feasibly do now? I
believe what you're saying, but I'm curious what "broke" for you.

[Matthias Buelow]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

Jeff Schwab wrote:

What is it that you could do then, that you can't feasibly do now? I
believe what you're saying, but I'm curious what "broke" for you.

One example is running into error messages like:

blah.h:13: error: conversion from '<unresolved overloaded function type>' t
o non-scalar type '__gnu_cxx::__n ormal_iterator< foo*, std::vector<foo ,
std::allo
cator<foo >' requested

is what makes it so slow and frustrating. Too many WTFs/minute. At least
gcc produces enormous output, often barely intelligible, for really
minor offences. Templates have really obfuscated the type system.
(Actually, the above error message is relatively harmless still, I just
couldn't find something worse off-hand.) Of course one learns to
recognize certain patterns but sometimes it's still too much
head-scratching before one knows what's going wrong.

Another thing is debugging. I know my way around with gdb fairly well,
so that isn't the problem. The problem is the combination of: an
obfuscating static type system (see above), too little runtime
information about said type system, combined with manual memory
managment in (real-life) programs that do not necessarily follow
bandaid-principles like RAII, in programs that are often event-driven
(like modern GUI applications) are. Sensory overload, coredump.
A dynamic language with good runtime support and automatic memory
management would be a big improvement here (I'm not talking about
Java/C#. Maybe Objective-C, never used it but it looks promising at
first glance. Maybe a modern version of Lisp. Or something Smalltalky.
Things like these.)

[Linonut]

Re: Linux programming, is there any C++?

* Tomás Ó hÉilidhe peremptorily fired off this memo:

>
I'm kind of new to Linux and I've started downloading applications and
installing them. Applications are distributed as source code in a
".tar.gz" file. You unzip the file, navigate to the directory, run
"configure" , then run "make", then run "make install".
>
Anyway, in all the programs I've seen, there's only ever been .c files, and
it looks like only gcc has been invoked. Do people in the Linux community
not use C++ and distribute their source in ".tar.gz"?

fluxbox (the window manager) is one C++ project.

There are many others.

--
Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli