Re:I write games in C (yes, C)
by jamienicol on Sunday February 08, 2026 @11:38AM
(#46935904)
Surely your criteria should be some combination of the two (plus other factors). C may have fewer footguns than C++, but it still has many, whilst also lacking many useful features
Re:I write games in C (yes, C)
by lelanthran on Sunday February 08, 2026 @02:53PM
(#46937867)
> Surely your criteria should be some combination of the two (plus other factors).
Sure, but the weighting would be different for different people.
> C may have fewer footguns than C++, but it still has many, whilst also lacking many useful features
We are not talking "2 fewer footguns", or "5 fewer footguns"; we are talking "dozens fewer footguns".
When I need a language with more features than C, I don't choose C++, because the choice is not "Use C for simplicity, and use C++ to trade simplicity off against features", it's usually "Use C for simplicity, and use Java/C#/Go/Rust for features".
If your criteria for a good language is "how many features does it have", then sure, C++ wins. OTOH, if you criteria is "How many footguns does the language have" then C++ loses to almost every other mainstream language, which includes C.
Sometimes the lack of footguns is a plus.