Raindog wrote:
Mathias Gaunard wrote:
Simonson, Lucanus J wrote:
Why stop half way? Why not have an open source C++ runtime environment if the goal is applications programming and rapid prototyping in C++ with open source components? An open source GC library is a good building block for such a system, and of course we'd prefer to implement it in C++.
Why build a runtime environment based on GC when you can make a better one that is not?
Because the majority of programmers have proven that they obviously prefer a GC environment over an RAII one. Given that a large number of C++ programmers don't even take advantage of RAII, I would say that a c++ runtime w/ GC and RAII would be very appealing to a larger number of people.
Whenever anyone writes "the majority of programmers..." one can discount the subsequent statement "the majority" of the time. Unless you are talking about something that is true.
.Net, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, D et al automatically provide GC. 8 of the top 10 languages in use today, according to http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html, provide GC. I
Edward Diener wrote: think my statement about what the majority of programmers prefer still stands. I'm not trying to say however that GC is best/better than RAII etc, or that the languages with GC are somehow better than C++. I do however think that the "ez mode" programming that GC'd environments provided appeals to a larger number of programmers than does C++. C++ is an expert friendly language for many reasons and one would be naive to think that one's profession is filled with experts. Also, for people looking for a runtime envrironment for C++, they can look at Ch.