There is a new language that claims to be the successor to C++ in town, and it's got Google's funding 😥

It's called carbon

https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang

What do you folk think?

If this succeeds, then Google will have the advantage in cross platform code (with Dart) as well as high performance code(Carbon)

On Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 16:27:25 UTC, Tejas wrote:

The FAQ is interesting to see how a large C++ user like Google might have problems adopting new languages: https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang/blob/trunk/docs/project/faq.md#why-not-rust
(mostly: Rust being too safe to incrementally port from C++ to Rust)

Carbon seems to uses clang as ImportCPP, a bit like Calypso?

It is, of course, a bit of a killer feature for people using C++ (like a C++ compiler supporting C, Typescript etc..) however now you would be tied to both Google and Apple when using this one language ; codebases using Carbon will mechanically never get rid of their C++.

On Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 16:27:25 UTC, Tejas wrote:

It is v0.1, so I cannot really tell what it will be like, but it my immediate reaction is that this looks like something a Rust programmer being forced to write in C++ would come up with.

Why would I want to write "fn" before functions and "var" in classes? Right now it seems to provide more downsides than upsides and is too close to C++ to be worthwhile, but it is v0.1, so who knows?

On Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 16:57:29 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

In your experience, how long does it take a v0.1 language to get to v1.0? This is the first time I'm witnessing the rise of a language funded by one of MAANG, so I'm extremely ignorant of how things usually proceed.

On Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 16:47:26 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

Yeah, but that won't be much of an advantage when people will compare D and Carbon strictly on the basis of technical merit

Very few will be bothered by the fact that they are now dependent on two corporations instead of one

On Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 17:03:23 UTC, Tejas wrote:

That would depend on demands and resources? In this case they say they are more of a successor to C++, so they can perhaps lock down more design choices than if you go for something novel.

Bu if it takes less than 3 years to reach V1.0 then I would say they are rushing it… On the other hand they also say that they focus on language evolution and intend to break things: «Our goals are focused on migration from one version of Carbon to the next rather than compatibility between them.»

I don't know how to interpret that… Some would say that would make it dead on arrival, but if the migration is fully automatic… well, we have to wait and see. The proof is in the pudding.

On Tuesday, 19 July 2022 at 17:09:33 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

I found this now:
Potential 2024-2025 goals: ship 1.0 language & organization :
«A major milestone will be the first version of a production language. We should also have finished transferring all governance of Carbon to an independent open source organization at that point. However, we won't know what a more realistic or clear schedule for these milestones will be until we get closer.»

Since all software projects of some size are delayed, I'd say 2026… ;-)

C++ needs a replacement, that is for sure

But this one replicates one of its issues: needing forward declaration

This is enough to turn me off personally

D is one of the few to have done modules right

Zig is a close 2nd since it did it in a more pragmatic way (everything is a struct, and it only compiles what you use, not what you import)

I think it is enough to compete with C++, but not enough to compete with other languages including D imo