Google Engineers Lift The Lid On Carbon - A Hopeful Successor To C++

[mb_q]

There are languages people bitch about, and languages nobody uses. ( see https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/)
Seems Carbon's gonna be popular

Even if its just a cleaned up C++ not dragged down with forever ABI compatibility its gonna be worth it. But given that Chandler Carruth is involved, it could turn out really good.

Yeah, with Scratch (!) & Cobol more popular than Rust, SQL as programming language... Tiobe is a yet another ranking based on hit counts of some random queries reported by Google & other search engines, a methodology that is generally known to be close to nonsense https://link.springer.com/chapter/10...642-29253-8_73

[c117152]

Looking at the syntax changes shown in the samples over at the github, Carbon seems more appropriate to C devs that want to add compiled classes and generics to their code-base without bringing over the whole C++ freak show.

[Ironmask]

Looking at the syntax changes shown in the samples over at the github, Carbon seems more appropriate to C devs that want to add compiled classes and generics to their code-base without bringing over the whole C++ freak show.

I'm just impressed Google managed to put generics into a language they made, I thought that was a monumental engineering feat they could never achieve. Maybe they got their hands on a couple ex-Microsoft employees.

[ssokolow]

You can disable Rust's borrow checker and that's how most of Rust's internals and FFI operate.
Seems like a great effort of duplicated technology to make a whole new language because you can't find the off switch.

No, you can enable constructs not subject to borrow checking (raw pointers). That's how Rust internals and FFI operate. There's no switch to disable borrow-checking.

[bison]

By the way - what was the reason for Go?

Concurrency.

[vein]

what? Go is absolutely not failed. On the contrary, it is gaining a lot of traction.
Also, Go is not a C++ replacement as Carbon is meant to be.

They're two different languages with two completely different purpouses.

Neither has Dart...with flutter, dart is also getting a lot of traction...people just see what they want to see..

[JMB9]

Concurrency.

Well, reason for Go was to be similar to Java ... which always was extremely slow ... or do I miss something?
I don't think concurrency is that uncommon ... even with C or C++ - even though not natively.
So that's the reason everyone uses Go right now ...

[Mahboi]

It's kind of funny everyone names Rust-adjacent stuff after various forms of metal and oxidation, but Rust is actually named after a fungus (the creator really like fungi).

You know you work with too many nerds when a terrible pun, instead of being shut down, is corrected for being factually inaccurate.

[Mahboi]

C: I do things

C++: I do 100x more things
C++11: I do more things and more modern but also the old things
C++14: I do more more things and more modern but also the old things
C++17: I do more more more things and more modern but also the old things
C++20: I do more more more more things and more modern but also the old things

Dlang: I clean up C++'s mess
Rust: I clean up C++'s mess
X, Y and Z: We clean up C++'s mess

Dlang, Rust, X, Y and Z: "why aren't the C++ people leaving their beyond bloated language for us?!"
Carbon: "it's because you didn't clean up C++'s mess enough, let me clean it"

C++ is lost to mankind.

[Ironmask]

C: I do things

C++: I do 100x more things
C++11: I do more things and more modern but also the old things
C++14: I do more more things and more modern but also the old things
C++17: I do more more more things and more modern but also the old things
C++20: I do more more more more things and more modern but also the old things

Dlang: I clean up C++'s mess
Rust: I clean up C++'s mess
X, Y and Z: We clean up C++'s mess

Dlang, Rust, X, Y and Z: "why aren't the C++ people leaving their beyond bloated language for us?!"
Carbon: "it's because you didn't clean up C++'s mess enough, let me clean it"

C++ is lost to mankind.

There kind of has been a mass exodus of C++ users to Rust.
I don't know why people still keep lumping Rust in with the rest of the run-of-the-mill Better C++(TM) languages, Rust is so widely adopted it's getting into Linux. Like I feel like people overlook that for some reason.
The simple fact of the matter is that C++ can't be cleaned up, we need a clean break. A "bandaid language" like this doesn't make sense to me, many C++ projects, including Google's Chromium, are incorporating Rust by finding ways to interop it with C++. Carbon makes no sense, it has a niche application of being a "bandaid" over C++, if you're going to extend your C++ codebase with another language, or rewrite any of your C++ in another language, then it may as well be Rust anyway. They should just keep working on ways to bridge Rust and C++, like they've been doing in Chromium, and work with Rust to try and stabilize it's ABI.
Or we could also just come to terms with the fact that C++ is the new COBOL and if you want to maintain a C++ project then you're now considered a special and valuable individual for knowing this language that only governments use. We're not at that point yet, but we're rapidly approaching it.