What does HackerNews think of cppfront?

Heck, even C++ is getting out of hand for Herb Sutter. He might say "ISO C++ is the best tool in the world today to write the programs I want and need", but then he also says "My goal (with cppfront) is to explore whether there's a way we can evolve C++ itself to become 10x simpler, safer, and more toolable."

https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

Have you looked at the CppFront[1] project by Herb Sutter? It's less of a completely new language like Carbon. It's meant to be C++ with a "nicer" syntax, while providing 100% linking compatibility, and with 100% source backward compatibility available when desired.

[1] https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

I had the same vibes with Herb Sutter's cppfront. It offers full source compatibility by introducing a new syntax that can be mixed freely with the traditional syntax. Seems like it's actively being worked on here https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront.

I've not looked at Circle in depth. Do you or anyone else have a perspective on how they compare?

True. Stroustrup's first implementation Cfront [1] was a C++ to C translator:

> Cfront was the original compiler for C++ (then known as "C with Classes") from around 1983, which converted C++ to C; developed by Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T Bell Labs. The preprocessor did not understand all of the language and much of the code was written via translations.

cppfront [2] aims to do the same for translating C++ to C++:

> Cppfront is an experimental compiler from a potential C++ 'syntax 2' (Cpp2) to today's 'syntax 1' (Cpp1), to learn some things, prove out some concepts, and share some ideas.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cfront

[2] https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

> New languages get to distill what works, and incorporate the lessons into their design directly - starting fresh, without the complexity baggage.

I think that may be the motivation for Sutter's work on cpp2.

https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

Herb is working on something like that already. See his work on CppFront as an alternative syntax for C++: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

Indeed. New versions never break the old. Every new feature has to account for interactions with the rest of the language.

Herb Sutter's https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront could be a good strategy to clean it up.

Unfortunately, it's also C++ code. Most of the weakest parts of C++ come from its close association with C.

When asking why some people like Rust over C++, I think not enough weight is given here: Rust got to not worry about decades of legacy C stuff seeping in. If Rust isn't your jam -- and I get why it wouldn't be -- there are some initiatives starting now from within the C++ community to shed the C legacy with a new language that feels a lot more like modern C++. Herb Sutter's cppfront[0] and Carbon[1] are examples.

But I don't think it makes sense to dismiss this criticism just because the author happens to like Rust. These C idioms continue to be valid and reasonably widely used in C++.

[0]: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront [1]: https://github.com/carbon-language/carbon-lang

I agree that ideally everything should be written in safer alternatives, in most scenarios is not feasible to migrate from C++ to another language, because of the code base size.

I think cppfront[0] is the way to go if you want to write a safer language on top of C++, you can watch the talk about it here[1].

[0] https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeZAKCN4tY

He calls it cpp2 or Syntax 2: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

As well as https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

That will be in cpp2 already: https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront

Fizzled out means just that, if you check C++ mailings, nothing happened since 2019.

Doesn't matter, because it was made public Herb Sutter's presented his own language as solution to fix C++ at this year's CppCon,

https://github.com/hsutter/cppfront