[sylware]

cproc/tcc/scc/etc are C compilers not c++.

If you want to compile a recent c++ compiler (gcc/clang), you must have already a c++ compiler (one of the biggest mistake in open source software ever was to move gcc to c++, clang doing the wrong thing right from the start...).

You can start to compile gcc 4.7.4, the last gcc compiler with buggy c++98 you could compile with a C compiler (you will need to patch it, and even unroll its full SDK), then you will have to compile at least 2 gccs to reach the last gcc. This insane mess is due to the infinite versions of c++ ISO "standard", introducing tons of feature creep which will force you to "upgrade" (mostly no real good reasons, namely developer tantrums, or planned obsolescence).

This is disgusting, Big Tech grade abomination of software engineering, shame on the people who did that and those in power who are not trying to fix it (probably the GCC steering committee).

[kragen]

Rewriting GCC's C++ codebase in C is also not realistic.

[sylware]

I pointed out that some people seems to get good results at porting c++ to C using "AI"(LLM).

And big mistakes require big fixing.

[kragen]

Yeah, we doin', big pimpin', we spendin' cheese

Big pimpin' on B-L-A-D’s, we doin'

Big pimpin' up in NYC

It's just that Jigga Man, Pimp C and B-U-N B

[anthk]

Rust it's worse for that; for full reproducibility you almost need to create a release-centipede from an old GCC-rs (or GCC) compilable release to the current one. At least that's the norm under Guix.

On cproc, cparser, I meant that we have no lightweight c++ compilers and sadly the closest to cparser in lightness it's clang++, because it's either that or the g++ behemoth.

[sylware]

In the light of all that, there are still people unable to understand why computer languages with ultra-complex syntaxes are really an issue (c++, microsoft rust, etc...)

[anthk]

More like complex, overloaded. ML languages have a complex syntax but are manageable. OTOH, on Lisp, about bloated languages like Common Lisp compared to Scheme, you don't have to follow all the Common Lisp Hyperspec in order to create something; a subset would be pretty fine, even without CLOS. Scheme IMHO it's worse with SRFI's with tons of opaque numbers in order to guess what does that. And don't let me start on Guile modules vs the Chicken ones...

People rants about CL being a bit 'huge', but with the introduction to the Symbolic Computation book and Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming you are almost done except for a few modules from QuickLisp (CL's CPAN/PIP), such as bordeaux-threads, usockets and MCClim for an UI, which will run everywhere.

C++ templates can be far more complex than Common Lisp macros. At least with CL you have a REPL to trivially debug and inspect then. Clang and GCC just recently began to introduce * understandable* help and error messages over template parsing walls...