alt Hacker NewsSwitching to C++ is relatively easy in an existing codebase. It's in many cases as simple as renaming a file from .c to .cpp. But for writing something from scratch it's better to use Rust.
Replies
uecker • today at 12:31 PM
Renaming c. to .cpp may work with ancient c89 code, but not with anything remotely modern. But while the code then is technically C++, it is not better. I still prefer C for new projects to any other language, because I value short compilation time and reduced complexity. For me, this translates in higher productivity and more fun. With modern tooling, also most C issues are detected early.
➕ show 1 reply
> It's in many cases as simple as renaming a file from .c to .cpp.
That is rather optimistic, but, for example, scpptool has a feature [1] that auto-converts from C to a subset of C that can (hopefully) be compiled with clang++. If the original C source uses C11 extensions, clang++ seems to generally produce warnings rather than compile errors.
> But for writing something from scratch it's better to use Rust.
scpptool attempts to make C++ a more viable option by enforcing a memory and data race safe subset using a similar safety strategy.
[1] https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus-AutoTransla...