I did C++ for a very, very long time (20+ years), and yes, you can take a nice subset of c++ that is not bloated, and in that case it's a nice language.

The problem is when you work with other people. They'll drag in all the bloat they can, templates, RTTI, stl (ick), and... boost (arrrgh). And you end up with code that is actually giganormous, and runs slower than Java. I'm not joking, try stuff like OpenSCAD (chokes on 2 pages of geometry) or Code::Blocks (lags like crazy when editing the smalest of file) then there is the obvious KDE desktop, and many others.

So a few years back I reverted to C99. C99 actually had some features that c++ lacks (complex struct initialisation for example) and after years of C++ you know enough about putting structure into your code that you don't /strictly/ need classes anyway. In fact, after a while, you start to realize that in many case, you /don't/ need classes -- sometime you can reduce a problem to 2 or 3 functions, you don't need the 24 accessors, 5 constructors and all that fluff.

It's very refreshing try it. I think you can pick up good habits by hacking on the linux kernel and stuff like qemu/kvm... that sort of C project uses very complex constructs, all in C, and all in a 'clean' environment, there is a LOT to learn in these projects.

The only thing I miss is references; thats the ONE thing I'd like to bring back.

Oh, and if you want slightly smarter memory management for struct-like-objects and that sort of stuff, do lookup "libtalloc" -- it's a little bit of samba that is well worth the look at..

Amen to this. I also notice that a lot of the "stories" are either deliberate plants, or are fed in by commercial interest into a clueless editorship.

So yes, I also have been mostly lurking, reading the RSS headlines and sometime clicking, I haven't commented in years!

But really, "BI" ? What a frigging joke, with the canned stock photography of suits weaving their mobile phone around.

Ever heard of embedded development ? Or, maybe you think that distros themselves just appear magically as an ".iso" file brought by father xmas ? I'm sure you're very proud of having recompiled your kernel at some point, and that seems to have given you enough insight into general software development to make large, broad statements about it all.
Actually, I /do/ find it funny, but not in the way you probably intended.

Is this really "slashdot.org" where "nerds" used to be around ? You know, nerds, who do technically oriented stuff "just because they can" ?

The various comments on this topic -including the one up- makes me wonder really, or has "nerd" become more of a "I'm such a nerd, babe, look, I installed an app on my smartphone".

Or /. has been mirrored to "hipster.com" and I'm accessing the wrong portal

"has the enthusiast passion for overclocking cooled off"

Not from my 5.0Ghz Core i7 2600k anyway -- The tools have become better, the mobo are generally better built and more tolerant to punishment (some have 2 Oz copper), the power rails are a LOT more controllable than before, and in general the IC companies that make the power ICs have progressed a lot too in that time, so you can overclock easier, quicker, get better results and in general, extract quite a bit more, without nitrogen.

And, I compile distros all day, to me going from 3.8Ghz max to 5.0Ghz stable (and quiet!) is awesome; make -j10 FTW !

Anyone tried "Chameleon" ? from the osx86 people ? beats the crap out of the lilo/grub combo by a country mile.

Alternatively, run extlinux. It's like grub, without all the garbage associated, and the now countless (on debian) directories of config file where you have to scratch your head for hours to add "vga=" to the kernel command line.