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

[phoronix]

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

In addition to Dart, Golang, and being involved with other programming language initiatives over the years, their latest effort that was made public on Tuesday is Carbon. The Carbon programming language hopes to be the gradual successor to C++ and makes for an easy transition path moving forward...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Carbon-Successor-To-CPP

[Ironmask]

HERE WE GO AGAIN!

I think we need to start addressing the concept of cognitive pollution, that you can make too many ideas and technologies that, because of their abundance, actually stifle the industry rather than propel it. And Google pollutes in this sense like China pollute in the traditional one.

[tsuru]

Can FFI from a higher level language be done similar to C and Rust? C++ mangling makes this excruciating. If not, I don't really want to see it gain traction.

[uxmkt]

Dart: failed. Golang: failed (since now there's Carbon). Carbon: failure to be shown, but I'm sure it'll come.

[dekernel]

I'm giving 5-to-1 odds that at the 9 month mark that this project will be dead, and at the 18 month mark, Google will be like "...what is this Carbon language thing that those 2 guys over there in the coffee shop keep talking about?". Just to gamble more, we can use a bitcoin exchange of your choosing to hold the escrow.

[Developer12]

Dart: failed. Golang: failed (since now there's Carbon). Carbon: failure to be shown, but I'm sure it'll come.

They explicitly say "don't use this, use rust instead if you can." It's for people who apparently have massive C++ codebases they can't get away from but would still like to feel safe(ish) writing new code. That said, it doesn't support borrow checking (or even can) so I'm really skeptical that this brings any meaningful improvment.

[oleid]

Can FFI from a higher level language be done similar to C and Rust? C++ mangling makes this excruciating. If not, I don't really want to see it gain traction.

check out the autocxx crate.

[Raka555]

Probably just a bit more sugar on the syntax without solving any real problem, like most of the languages that are coming out.

[discordian]

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.

[binarybanana]

So this is more like a fresh (go-like?) syntax for C++ rather than a completely new language? It certainly looks boring (which might or might not be a gt thing). But I guess if you're stuck with C++ it could be nice, like for writing UIs using Qt. Maybe even as bridge to write bindings for other languages. Maybe?