| There are different dimensions of "complex": 1. How cumbersome a language is to use (as a beginner, as a confident developer, etc). - C++ is rather easy to start, but takes ages to master and surprises even powerful users daily. - Rust is hard to start, it states complexity of systems upfront in a tightly packed knot that should be handled all at once, but once you're past that, it's rather consistent. - Haskell is very hard to start with, it is basically unlearning every imperative habit, but again, after that it's a powerful and mostly consistent tool (not without its warts, but drastically less than C++). There is some tolerance of complexity in the ecosystem, but it is clearly encapsulated in libraries and justified by papers and research interests. 2. How complex is the abstract core of a language. - Haskell has had an amazingly simple, elegant and consistent core for decades; on the other hand, modern Haskell has accumulated a lot of research-y stuff (which is still optional to use), which may be nice/cumbersome depending on the situation. Run-time behavior feels woefully underspecified though, and can be flaky and hard to reason about. - the mental model of Rust is bigger and more complex than in Haskell (traits, generics, lifetimes/onwership, the underlying C-like memory model), but it's definitely practical (if somewhat spartan) and consistent. - C++ does not have a coherent vision at all: it is a pile of organically grown features with interesting (and sometimes useful) interactions. This pile is outright impossible to reason about formally. The only definition in which "C++ is not more complex" is the definition of being easy to use for a beginner in the language. |