Re: C++ in the kernel

["Simon 'corecode' Schubert" <corecode@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Erik Wikström wrote:
> On 2009-01-05 15:02, B. Estrade wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 02:29:19PM +0100, Erik Wikstr??m wrote:
> > > On 2009-01-05 12:33, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> > > > On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 05:06:13PM +0100, Michael Neumann wrote:
> > > > > This question bugs me since a quite long time so I write it down...
> > > > >
> > > > > FreeBSD had a long thread about pros and cons of using C++
> > > > > in the kernel here [1].
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm undecided whether it would be good to use C++ in the DragonFly kernel.
> > > > Regardless of what folks decide, I ask that everyone keep one thing in
> > > > mind (which so far in this thread has not been mentioned):
> > > >
> > > > This is an open-source project.  What guarantee is there that all
> > > > members of the project (at the time, or in the future) are going to
> > > > understand all the intricacies and C++ nomenclature?
> > > > This story is not meant to reflect on C++ the language.  I hope readers
> > > > understand the point of the story, and take into considerations the pros
> > > > and cons of said choice.
> > > That is a very important consideration, however I would like to point
> > > out that for kernel development only a very limited subset of the C++
> > > language would be used. I would assume that the most desirable features
> > > would be 1) real classes with member-functions as opposed to structs and
> > > functions that work on them, 2) inheritance, 3) constructors/
> > > destructors, and 4) templates, which are quite easy to understand.
> > Is the current code bad or something? What exactly is the problem that
> > can be "solved" with C++? 
>
> Actually I think the current code is quote good, at least the part's of
> it that have been changed the last decade or so. And there is no problem
> that can't be solved in C (or Fortran or Ada) that can't be solved in
> C++. But fact is that many parts of the kernel uses object oriented
> programming, but C does not have support for this at the language level
> and C++ does. It is also a fact that current code uses macros to create
> generic types (such as lists and queues) and once again this is
> something that C++ has language level support for.

I'd like to see a non-ugly template implementation that can be used like 
our current queue.h/tree.h macros.  I don't like C++, but I'd be 
positively surprised it this could be solved elegantly.

cheers
  simon

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