C++ sucks

[Martin Naef]

Hi Peter

Peter Korsten wrote:
>> I'm not denying that. But when I try to do low-latency machine vision 
>> processing with a camera running at 200Hz, the last thing I need is 
>> garbage collection kicking in at the wrong moment, and bounds checking 

> One thing you have to keep in mind is the progress that dynamic 
> optimisation has made over the last few years. There's no comparison 

I'm not denying that. But in the example above, I get a factor of *ten* 
in speed for image segmentation by using SSE2 code within a C++ 
application. That's what I mean by digging really deep. You also mention 
that Java doesn't have an unsigned byte data type - that alone would 
give me a factor of two in performance loss because it'd force me to use 
a short int, and hence double memory bandwidth. Having total control 
over memory layout is also crucial when you communicate with hardware - 
such as a graphics card.

I'm well aware that I do very specialised things here, which are not 
relevant to a large proportion of other software developers. But that's 
exactly why I like C++: It give me all the power I want - I'm *in 
control*, but the price I pay is that I'm also 100% responsible.

>> That means C++ is a great language. For me.
> 
> No doubt, but if you're doing any processing that is not real-time, or 
> anything that vaguely resembles accessing a database or doing network 
> communication, you should have a look at Java. The implementation of 

Agreed. But I don't do any of that, actually... (ok, network, occasionally)

Bye
Martin

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