VK9 Project Stalls As Developer Leaves To Pursue Other Interests

[Britoid]

Wine should of been written in Java.

Fight me.

[cybertraveler]

Wine should of been written in Java.

Fight me.

[carewolf]

I share many of your sentiments, but I think C++ is good. You can always just use it like C with some handy extensions here and there. Then you find it's a pretty good language (and nobody forces you to use the obscure features of it, either).

What's bad about C++ is the standard library, and the fact that most "C++ programmers" will think I'm nuts. That is what sucks about it, both the community, and the stupid standard library.

No, in my experience most veteran C++ developers prefer to avoid the standard library (and Boost) when they can. There is nothing nuts about that. What drives you crazy is when you end up with a large application like Chrome, that has some 20 different string implementations. You start to wonder if you should reconsider the default NIH position of C++ developers, but that would madness.

[cybertraveler]

...

If you make 4 more posts you will be complete :P I'd consider making a new account if/when I reach that number.

[rabcor]

Welp, that's too bad. I guess at the very least other projects like Wine's attempt at bringing DX9 to Vulkan will benefit from his efforts.

Wine should of been written in Java.

Fight me.

You would lose.

[zxy_thf]

vkd3d is basically split from Wine, same devs and all. It's the same style and everything. Not fair example.

Though, I'd say it's maybe because it uses Boost for no reason and other stupid shit like that.

Boost+1
I and everyone around me had negative experiences with Boost so we tried our best to avoid it.

[Happy Heyoka]

No, in my experience most veteran C++ developers prefer to avoid the standard library (and Boost) when they can. There is nothing nuts about that. What drives you crazy is when you end up with a large application like Chrome, that has some 20 different string implementations.

I guess considering my first C++ "compiler" was CFront, that makes me a "veteran".

The standard library and the template library are kind of vast; and can be subtle. Really subtle. I think it would totally depend on where you came from to arrive at C++ as to how you use (or not use) the StdLib & STL. Take MSVC for example. Visual Studio is an excellent tool - it was my bread and butter for more than a decade. But it's adherence to the "standard" was always a bit sketchy. Strings are an excellent example of that.
Personally I think strings are good now in the standard stuff... but they weren't for a decade or so... that's a lot of code, and a lot of bad experience carried forward for no good reason. There are a lot of "kitchen sink" C++ programmers - I suspect I was one for a while. Less is more and the language has evolved to support that.

I'm still learning about C++ now 20 years on. Do yourself a favour before you decide and watch a couple of presentations by Herb Sutter or Scott Meyers eg:
CppCon 2014: Herb Sutter "Back to the Basics! Essentials of Modern C++ Style"

https://youtu.be/xnqTKD8uD64

Having said all that, I haven't looked at the VK9 code but having worked on a big 3D project once, I suspect lots and lots of detail and probably lots of recurring patterns - same thing over and over just with six kinds of data type. With skilled use of templates that would be ideal C++ territory.

[pal666]

I wonder if the lack of interest from other devs may partially be due to the fact it's written in C++:

i'm pretty sure there are more c++ devs than plain c devs. even linus these days writes qt apps in c++

Wine is mostly written in C:
It looks like VK3D is also written in C:

vk3d is wine which was started in prehistoric times before first c++ standard was ready. on the other hand dxvk is written in c++. and i'm pretty sure that's one of reasons for its success. mesa is also c++ btw. as are gcc/clang or any browser or office suite. no need to handicap yourself in 2019

[pal666]

There seems to be a sizeable portion of the Open Source developer culture that doesn't like C++. I'm one of them.

well, some open source developers are uneducated or just plain idiots. they also tend to dislike systemd for example.

There are notable projects that use C++ (VLC, Firefox, QT etc), but they are like silos tacked onto our Open Source systems. As-in: you could enjoy a complete GNU/Linux system without them (imagine: Gnome + systemd + Linux + bash + mplayer
+ rust-Firefox (eventually) etc).

no, you can't. your compiler is written in c++. yes, even compiler for rust. as is your debugger and two of three available linkers (with one not in c++ is the legacy one). and "eventually" should be expressed in centuries since rust has taken few percents of firefox codebase(basicaly parent organisation) in more than ten years of its existence.

I'd personally prefer if none of the software I used was written in C++. I'd be much happier if it was written in almost anything else: C, Go, Swift, Rust or even in an interpreted language like Python, Perl or Ruby, if it was a small app.

why are idiots so fanatical?

I know not everyone shares my view.

that's an understatement

I just find C++ really ghastly. It's so big, ugly & complicated.

you are either stupid as brick, or live in some alternative reality. in real world c++ language spec is of same size as competition (java and c#). c++ library spec is tiny compared to java which is tiny compared to c#

I can see why people like the power of it and I know that well written C++ code can be both maintainable and performant. However, I think the language tends developers towards ugly, unmaintainable code that isn't necessarily faster than even a Go or Java app.

well, not all things you think are true.

Even when someone does make a nice C++ app, I still am put off by it. Being written in C++, Java or Javascript, it will lack this conceptual beauty and elegance that a program written in Python or C can have.

c can't have more elegance than c++ by definition(unless you define "i have no idea what this construct means" as "inelegant"). python is dynamically typed language which will elegantly fail during use instead of during compilation. and your "elegant" c code will also trip at runtime where c++ wouldn't

[pal666]

most "C++ programmers" will think I'm nuts

and that's certainly their fault?