Programming language C vs c++ (was: [GRASS5] Want GNU libavl ?)

[Andrea Aime]

Alle 11:27, martedì 22 gennaio 2002, Bernhard Reiter ha scritto:
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 10:39:07PM +0000, David D Gray wrote:
> > I know that we have this long-standing policy of preferring ANSI C as
> > the central language for GRASS.
>
> For many freshly founded Free Software-projects C still is the first
> choice for a reason.

Portability I think...

> > But the truth is that few people _if
> > any_ today in engineering, research, academia use C as the development
> > language. It is almost universally C++ that is used.
>
> I do not agree with the statement.
> And even if I did I call it a mistake to bet on C++.
> We can agree upon that this mistake is made by a large group of
> people, though. There is no reason to repeat it.

Mmm, for what is worth, I can confirm David opinion... here 
academic people are using C++ for hard core tasks and Java for
everything else, as far as I can see...

> Without going into the details I do not consider C++ a nice
> programming language. There are also general doubts regarding
> the object-orientated approach in computer science now.
> It concerns databases and programming languages.
>
> For a pointer to skepticsm regarding C++ see one of the
> better "language discussions":
>
> 	http://www.advogato.org/article/207.html

I will read the article, but in fact I keep finding C libraries a bit messy
when compared to well done OO libraries (QT, WxWindows and the like...)
For what concerns use of programming languages in general, I can 
report the experience I am having here in Italy. The most widely used
PL here is Visual Basic, followed by Java for net oriented applications
and C++ when you really need speed on a very complicated application
(GIS is one example)... the common opinion here is that if you use C
you're coming from the age of stone... (not my opinion, just what you
hear "on the road", I know only a couple of italian software houses
using straight C, and just to maintain old software until the new version
is written). Ok, stop complaining, it's just that when I'm speaking with
GRASS hackers I have the feeling of living on a different planet ;-) ...

Anyway is not a problem for me to continue using C, but I agree with
other posting here that the GRASS library needs a clean-up :-)
Best regards
Andrea