| Ada? D? Turbo Pascal? Modula-2?... All great languages, but try finding a D compiler for a Blackfin chip, or something similarly esoteric. C++ just goes more places where you would want it to go. Some of C and C++ advantages come from having 30 years of compiler optimizations, while compiler vendors stoped caring about implementations for other languages. Certainly - with a clean slate in 2014, you'd design something else - something that would make static analysis easier and static constraints possible. Basically, something like Rust. But C++11 is still pretty cool. I am big on C++, but as a language geek, I am looking forward to .NET Native release, and see how far it can take C# in this language X vs language Y discussions. I had no idea C# was 'going native'. I guess we've come full circle, what with this and news of Android L moving to ahead-of-time-compiled 'java'. Still, I have absolutely no interest in C#. |
Historical accident of compiler market. Not directly related to the programming languages themselves.
> I had no idea C# was 'going native'.
C# is already native when you target Windows Phone 8. It is just going native on the remaining Microsoft platforms.