this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 92 points 7 months ago (10 children)

Is there some lore about this I don't know?

[–] [email protected] 137 points 7 months ago (2 children)

There is no C++ allowed in the Linux kernel and Linus has gone on several major rants about how terrible a language it is.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 7 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 86 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There’s assembly and makefiles too

Less of a joke answer, there has been work to allow Rust bindings for drivers.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 85 points 7 months ago (4 children)

According to the github analysis, the kernel repository is:

  • C 98.3%
  • Assembly 0.7%
  • Shell 0.4%
  • Makefile 0.2%
  • Python 0.2%
  • Perl 0.1%
  • Other 0.1%

So yeah, its basically all C, plus a tiny bit of assembly for very low level bootstrapping and some helper scripts.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but a lot of that C code has inline assembly so it's more like 5-10% asm.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Inline assembly is such a shit practice. But c++ bad.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes you can't get around it though.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Lots of core UNIX and Linux projects are. C++ is not liked by a lot of low level FOSS community. I think Rust is going to get further into these areas. I know C++ well but prefer C. I know plenty of others who feel the same.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Torvalds just really dislikes C++. He's gone on the record saying that he thinks it's just not a good language. In his own words "C++ is just a waste, there is no design at all, just adding some scum on top of C."

[–] [email protected] 55 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (3 children)

In the specific use case of kernel programming, maybe. But the Standard Template Library is awesome.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

they dumped everything in the languaga, at least samething they needed to have right, it's otherwise statistically impossible

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago

Never before have I been so offended by something I 100% agree with.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

I would have agreed with that before C++11. But since then, C++ has improved a lot. Its like the vision of what C++ suddenly became more clear. So I wonder if Linus would still say that today. (Unfortunately, there have been a lot of missteps in the development of C++ though, and so there is a lot of cruft that everyone wishes was not there...)

[–] [email protected] 53 points 7 months ago

”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.”

http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus

[–] [email protected] 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't know about Linus, but the last time Reiser's wife was seen, she was writing a c++ hello world

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

”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.”

http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Literally apply that train of thought to JavaScript and JavaScript is in an even worse position than C++

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

JavaScript has the Node.js community in it and that just says it all really.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (6 children)

For an example from the other poster’s explanation:

https://lwn.net/Articles/249460/

This was pre c++11 - not sure if he’s changed his mind at all with more modern c++

[–] 5C5C5C 11 points 7 months ago (6 children)
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[–] [email protected] 52 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The day I learned that Linus shares my disdain for all things OOP was such a good day for me.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Me, when Linus' opinion is different to mine: "Linus has such weirdly strong opinions about this"

Me when Linus' opinion is the same as mine: VINDICATION

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

peak hairless ape

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I feel the OOP debate got a bit out of hand. I hate OOP as well, as a paradigm.

But I love objects. An object is just a struct that can perform operations on itself. It's super useful. So many problems lend themselves to the use of objects.

I've been writing a mix of C and C++ for so long I don't even know where the line is supposed to be. It's "C with objects". I probably use only 1% of the functionality of C++, but that 1% is a huge upgrade from bare C IMO.

[–] namingthingsiseasy 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Agreed. Objects are nice and a great way to program. Composition is great. Traits/interfaces are great. Namespaces are great. Objects are a really nice way to reap the benefits of principles like these.

But then there are aspects of OOP that absolutely suck, like inheritance. I hate inheritance. The rules get very confusing very quickly. For example, try understanding overriding of methods. Do I need to call the superclass method or not? If not, does it get called automatically? If so, in what order? How do these rules change for the constructor? Now repeat this exercise for every OOP language you use and try not to mix them up... Java, C++, Python, etc.

Fortunately, it feels like we rely on inheritance less and less these days. As an example, I really like how Java allows you to implement Runnable these days. Before, if you wanted to run a thread, you needed a separate object that inherited Thread. And what if that object needs to inherit from another one too? Things would get out of hand quickly. (This is a very old example, but with lambdas and other new features, things are getting even better now.)

Anyway, long story short, I think OOP is a complicated way to achieve good principles, and there are simpler ways to achieve those principles than a full OOP implementation.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (18 children)

He is is OK with OOP. The Linux kernel is full of OPP C, but he doesn't like C++

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 7 months ago

I know it is a complete joke. But every time i think of c++ i am reminded of this prank article https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/cpp.htm

[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I wonder what would offend Linus more: A version of the Linux Kernel with C++ or one that breaks the userspace...

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's just a crime against humanity.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (3 children)

You know you want a PHP distribution with a JavaScript interface. Don't lie to yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Uuuuu... you done it now 😬...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Mic looks like earring, can't unsee it...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Assembly it is, then

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (2 children)

For kernel dev it would be a disaster, there's too much implicit action, and abstractions that have unknown runtime cost. The classic answer is that everyone uses 10% of its features over C, but nobody can agree on which 10%.

As someone forced to get up to date with C++ recently, at this point it's a language in full identity crisis. It wants so badly to be Rust, but it's got decades of baggage it's dragging along.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

And now there is precedent for Rust components in the Linux kernel.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

It do be like that... a lot of old languages want to be Rust...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

What’s wrong with C? Just write a module

  • My dad
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