Joel Jacobson joel@trustly.com wrote: > My motivation is primarily I don't want to learn all the over-complicated details of C,
That's rich, mate. C is one of the simplest languages. It's simplicity is its main benefit and its biggest drawback: it shields very little from the actual underlying hardware and system. C++ is incredibly complex, while still granting one access to the underlying system. Every other high-level language I've seen that shields its users from the "details", ultimately suffers for it: either you the programmer must accept the limitations of what the language provides at the cost of flexibility and power, or you can't do what you really want to do, or you have to use lower-level primitives to accomplish what you want.
Craig Ringer said:
> This is only partly a deficiency of C. Lots of it is down to low level systems being complex, hard and varied. Weak vs strong memory ordering, LP64 vs ILP64, etc etc etc.
Well-said. Adding to that: interprocess management and communication.
> I suspect we'd land up having to move to C++ exceptions
Craig, isn't it the case that C++ exceptions still cause tremendous slow-downs of the entire code-base?