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by PH95VuimJjqBqy 873 days ago
right, exactly.

Linus has such a clarity of thought that if I disagree with him I have to examine why. Anything else is hubris imo, his track record speaks for itself.

Perfect example is his infamous rant on why C++ wasn't used for git. He's a kernel developer, of course that's his opinion. I still love C++ but I'm certainly not offended by it.
1 comments
hasty_pudding 873 days ago
what did he use?
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PH95VuimJjqBqy 873 days ago
git was implemented in C.

Someone asked him why he didn't choose C++ for it and he went on a rant basically saying C++ was bad, people that use it are subpar programmers, and that one of the advantages of choosing C is to weed out people who think C++ would have been a good choice.

oddly enough I can't seem to find the original rant, if someone can provide that I'd be greatful.

edit:

to give context to my original post, Linus is a kernel developer, he's going to value things that the vast majority of developers don't because he's dealing with problems that the vast majority of developers don't.

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shrimp_emoji 873 days ago
He was talking about not letting C++ code into the Linux kernel.

As a C++ programmer, my cope for this is that back then's C++ was today's C#. It was the even-higher-level, comfier, shortcut language, loved by noobs and normies who aren't true hardcore nerds (identified by the masochism of choosing to write C) and write code that makes you cringe. (Although the situation is better today since C# excludes classes of errors C++ doesn't, so it actually IS friendlier than C while C++ merely gives you the illusion that it is. :p That it's often used as a beginner language blows my mind given how complicated it is once you get to learning it.)

Today, I think C++ has been bled off of those people (who have since fled to higher levels of abstraction while only hardcore nerds harbor the masochism to have stuck to C++), and modern C++ has made the language so much more powerful, that it would be worthy of being in the kernel. That said, we have Rust, which is an even better replacement for C.

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PH95VuimJjqBqy 873 days ago
I found the initial post and response on a github issue of all places.

https://github.com/shawnanastasio/BasilC/issues/9

> C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do nothing but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.

> In other words: the choice of C is the only sane choice. I know Miles Bader jokingly said "to piss you off", but it's actually true. I've come to the conclusion that any programmer that would prefer the project to be in C++ over C is likely a programmer that I really would prefer to piss off, so that he doesn't come and screw up any project I'm involved with.

Here's another article that's quoting from it as well.

https://fossbytes.com/linux-creator-linus-torvalds-c-program...

I don't doubt he's ranted about it in other places but the rant I remember is definitely the git one :)

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hasty_pudding 872 days ago
> even if the choice of C were to do nothing but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.

Thats funny as hell. I love Linus.

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hasty_pudding 872 days ago
> that one of the advantages of choosing C is to weed out people who think C++ would have been a good choice.

Im pretty sure that was a little tongue in cheek. Thats hilarious though.

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