Re: Compiling C++ modules

Kyle Moffett
2006-04-24T21:29:56Z

On Apr 24, 2006, at 17:03:46, Avi Kivity wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
>> There are a few anti C++ bigots around too, but the kernel choice
>> of C was based both on rational choices and experimentation early
>> on with the C++ compiler.
>
> Times have changed, though. The C++ compiler is much better now,
> and the recent slew of error handling bugs shows that C is a very
> unsafe language.
>
> I think it's easy to show that the equivalent C++ code would be
> shorter, faster, and safer.

Really? What features exactly does C++ have over C that you think
make that true? Implicit memory allocation? Exceptions? Operator
overloading? Tendency to use StudlyCaps? What else can C++ do that
C can not?

For example, I could write the following:

class Foo {
public:
Foo() { /* ... init code ... */ }
~Foo() { /* ... free code ... */ }
int do_thing(int arg) { /* ... code ... */ }

private:
int data_member;
};

Or I could write it like this:

struct foo {
int data_member;
};

int foo_init() { /* ... init code ... */ }
int foo_destroy() { /* ... free code ... */ }
int foo_do_thing(int arg) { /* ... code ... */ }

The "advantages" of the former over the latter:

(1) Without exceptions (which are fragile in a kernel), the former
can't return an error instead of initializing the Foo.

(2) You can't control when you initialize the Foo. For example in
this code, the "Foo item;" declarations seem to be trivially
relocatable, even if they're not.
spin_lock(&foo_lock);
Foo item1;
Foo item2;
spin_unlock(&foo_lock);

(3) Foo could theoretically implement overloaded operators. How
exactly is it helpful to do math on structs? Does that actually make
it any easier to understand the code? How does it make it more
obvious to be able to write a "+" operator that allocates memory?

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett