Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

GO DAWGS — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:29:00 GMT

You seem to be more than a little bitter about being excluded from the design of generics. I suspect this is systematic in the C++ community as you are pretty much getting owned by .net and C#. Why don't you just make the switch? I did, and have never looked back.

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

stan lippman — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 14:36:00 GMT

i don't mean to come across as bitter. i actually spent a long time -- well, about a year -- using C#. it was at the time the only viable window into .net, which is what interests me more than any particular language. my goal, if you will, when i joined microsoft, was to insure that c++ became a viable .net language -- and that has always meant being somewhat obnoxious, which of course is not my essential nature :-)

and i believe this has happened -- C++ is imo a better window into .net that any other language -- however, it is only a window, and the work is uneven at best. but the effort is very satisfying and i suspect surprised many people who had written c++ off -- just as the java community did back in the mid-1990s.

personally, i think you are the poorer for having never looked back -- and i would argue that you diminish your toolbox into .net by holding to that view.

but, the main point is, there is nothing to be bitter about; this is how things work. one just has to focus and keep what's important in mind, and not just throw off the past because things currently aren't going well. one can alternatively try to make things better -- and i think we have done that with visual c++ 2005, which is now available and begins to compete. how could i be bitter about that? so, if i came across that way, i did not mean to, and i hope this response goes a small way in offsetting that impression ...

stan

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

GO DAWGS — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 22:17:00 GMT

Sorry, I was just mad 'cause my job sucks. I was trying to joke but it didn't really work. Anyway, thanks for the great blog entry.

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

Nish — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 03:28:00 GMT

I personally believe that while C++/CLI might appear (initially) to have a tougher syntax than languages like C#, eventually it will be the #1 language for core-programmers to target .NET.

Of course it's just my opinion here, not sure how much that counts.

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

LDC — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 21:20:00 GMT

I think C++ is too complex now...faint!

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

stan lippman — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 05:10:00 GMT

well, these two comments together fairly represent a continuum ... this is why there are multiple languages available ... to serve each sensibility. cheers.

Complexity of templates

Nemanja Trifunovic — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 12:37:00 GMT

I would just like to comment on complexity of templates as a reason to use generics instead.

IMO, there are two distinct groups of people that use templates: those who write template libraries, and those who use template libraries.

Now, writing template libraries is tough. Templates used in this manner are complex, hard to debug, and often library writers use horrible hacks to work around some limitations of templates. However, only a small minority of C++ programmers ever gets a chance to be in that roles, and those who do are masters like Alexandrescu, Stepanov, Maddock, etc - they are not afraid of "complexities".

On the other hand, template library can (and indeed, often do) expose clean, logical, easy to use interface to application programmers. When you use e.g. Loki you don't really meet any of those "terribly complex" aspects of template programming - the burden was on the author of the library.

Therefore, I would say that all this talk about "complex templates" and "simple generics" is in practice a non-issue for the vast majority of programmers. The only "real-workld" problem with using template libraries I can think of is not-quite-readable compile error messages. It seems that generics are better in this regard. As for two phase name lookup and other subtleties, only a small number of people ever need to care about them.

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

stan lippman — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 03:11:00 GMT

thank you for writing.

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

LDC — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 05:34:00 GMT

But when C++ is easier to use, there will be more people to write libraries, isn't it?

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

Nemanja Trifunovic — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:18:00 GMT

Not if that "ease of use" comes at the expense of power and flexibility. With generics, it is just not possible to make libraries like Loki, MTL, most Boost libraries...

Generics are great for making type-safe collections, but that's (almost) it. That is the price for its "simplicity".

re: Why C++/CLI Supports both Templates for CLI Types and the CLI Generic Mechanism

stan lippman — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 19:20:00 GMT

well, i don't think we have enough experience with generics to be so dismissive. the real benefit of generics right now, however, are (a) MSIL/meta-data support, (b) cross-assembly visibility [templates are internal to an assembly], and, of course, (c) cross-language visibility.

Blog link of the week 32

Daniel Moth — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 18:32:00 GMT

http://www.zen13120.zen.co.uk/Blog/2004/08/blog-link-of-week-32-was-mistakenly-33.html

Generics

Being Scott Densmore — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 01:28:00 GMT

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