scott wrote:
>> - Splitting a program into more than one source file opens up a whole 
>> new world of pain. (Especially if you don't have the benefit of 
>> automake.)
> 
> You don't have to do this, and for tiny programs it's probably not 
> needed. For larger programs I cannot begin to imagine how inefficient it 
> would be to have it all in one file, let alone when I want to reuse an 
> existing class in another project.

The point is, as soon as you have more than one source file, you have to 
manually write header files, manually keep them synchronised with the 
source files, manually figure out the dependency tree, manually compile 
everything one at a time, manually recompile stuff as needed, and 
manually link it all at the end. Get any single step wrong, and at best 
you'll get an incomprehensible linker error; at worst you'll get a 
segfault. Good luck every figuring out why.

If you have automake, a few of those tasks become automated. But 
seriously, I'm used to having a language where you say "compiler my 
stuff" and it hands you a runnable program.

> You sound like you need to get a decent book on C++ (NOT C) and get a 
> modern IDE (Visuall C++ Express will let you do standard C++ without any 
> .net stuff and is free).

I've seen more adverts for C than for C++ (although there certainly seem 
to be quite a few for C++ as well). I think I might still have VS 
installed on my PC at home. I guess it's just finding the motivation to 
use a language which is over-complicated, unsafe and difficult when I 
could instead use one which is clean, simple and easy...

> Of course if you're stuck writing a whole program in one C file in 
> notepad things are gonna suck big time.

Actually, Borland's TurboC for DOS IDE. (Or, alternatively, Vim under 
Linux.)

Post a reply to this message