For my low level stuff I use C with namespaces. Seriously. C with namespaces beats the hell out of both C and C++ for most stuff. You can still link to C and C++, and you don't need to worry about the myriad of quirks you have in C++ and its compilers, while you can have some decent organisation in your code.
He probably means he uses a C++ compiler, but the only C++ feature used that isn't also in plain C is the namespace syntax.
This makes it easier to package up code into modules, since you can have namespace foo { bar } and namespace baz { bar }, without worrying that the two bar symbols will collide.
That's correct, and I use GCC for this. For some time I've also used m4 to pre-process namespaces and output C99-standard code. That would be my preferred way when I can get away with it because C++ compilers introduce uncanny little differences that can haunt you in some hedge cases, but it adds an extra step and then I'm doing something that doesn't work in the outside world.
For me, the biggest argument against C++ is that programmers can make much better use of their time than learning the massive list of quirks in C++ compilers. Having more features is not a deal breaker per se, even if it does cater to messy code. In real world situations you can usually choose a compiler for the whole team and a style for the whole team. This works in my company. But you have to be aware that this doesn't have to work in all situations, or even most situations.
With inline functions and dynamic variable declarations already in C99, I really think the complexity/usefulness compromise of adding anything else that is also available in C++ is very, very negative.
For other higher level features there are many other languages I'd take over C++. Ruby, LISP, Python, even Java or C# if you're that fond of C-ish syntax. For low-level stuff and speed, nothing higher level than what I said above. In my team C++ is nobody's favourite language but it's still what we use the most. Sadly, there are many other factors other than personal preference.
I'm interested in your comment about m4. I've never really used it except for sendmail configuration. The idea of using it to pre-process namespaces is interesting.
Would you mind expanding on how you set things up and what you do to use m4?
Sorry for not responding to this earlier, I just missed it.
In m4 I simply created some sort of preprocessor that renamed variables to have some sort of prefix depending on namespace. I haven't used this for a good while because then I have the issue that MSVC doesn't support other modern C99 things that I consider basic unless you compile in C++ mode, thus negating this. At work I need MSVC compatibility...
Hope you get to read this.
If I were to do this again today, I'd use OMeta. Give it a look, it's dead simple if you have the time to read through it.
