Re:Rethinking C++: Architecture, Concepts, and Responsibility
by gpderetta on Tuesday November 25, 2025 @07:57AM
(#46045352)
The biggest issue with printf is that it is not extensible to user types.
I also find it unreadable; beyond the trivial I always need to refer to the manual for the correct format string. In practice I tend to always put a placeholder and let clangd correct me with a fix-it.
Except that often clangd gives up (when inside a template for example), and in a few cases I have even seen GCC fail to correctly check the format string and fail at runtime (don't remember the exact scenario).
Speed is not an issue, any form of formatting and I/O is going to be too slow for the fast path and will be relegated to a background thread anyway.
Debugging and complexity has not ben an issue with std::format so far (our migration from printf based logging has been very smooth). I will concede that I do also worry about the compile time cost.
I also find it unreadable; beyond the trivial I always need to refer to the manual for the correct format string. In practice I tend to always put a placeholder and let clangd correct me with a fix-it.
Except that often clangd gives up (when inside a template for example), and in a few cases I have even seen GCC fail to correctly check the format string and fail at runtime (don't remember the exact scenario).
Speed is not an issue, any form of formatting and I/O is going to be too slow for the fast path and will be relegated to a background thread anyway.
Debugging and complexity has not ben an issue with std::format so far (our migration from printf based logging has been very smooth). I will concede that I do also worry about the compile time cost.