2026-07-01 13:32 UTC
@0x7700e6@mastodon.catgirl.cloud @fargate@tech.lgbt @rq4c@mastodon.world Uh, okay, I've wrote some C++ and Rust for embarked microcontrollers with less than 2mb of RAM, and I could bet it would a pretty similar developer experience using C or Basic. Well of course the binaries wouldn't be the same, but it really goes down to compilers optimisations, code mess and codebase size. Nowadays, we write memory-hogging programs because we have the luxury of having an ample quantity to work with. Plus we have more security concerns nowadays than back in the days (and damn securing your executables is by definition a resource-intensive process). I totally agree we should try to do much more optimised software, I personally think it's a necessity for practically undoing this idea of infinite growth, but I don't see why C would be better than other languages at that. I really don't get how OOP would inherently mean less optimised outputs.
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@rq4c@mastodon.world 2026-07-01 18:19
@adzetko@rivals.space @0x7700e6@mastodon.catgirl.cloud @fargate@tech.lgbt Concur with much of what you say here. But is it your assertion that the binary from an OO language, that has to spend the first five minutes (yes, I'm exaggerating) instantiating objects, will be as efficient as the binary from C that shifts registers and moves pointers? Was your microcontroller code really C++, or just C that had been passed through a C++ compiler? Why do people get excited about the efficiency of C, if any OO code is just as good?