Scott Meyers wants to bring default zero-initialization to C++, mentions TDPL for precedent

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 21 November 2015 at 10:29:57 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
> Yes PHP sclaes. PHP scales like crazy? PHP scales better than 
> whatever modern framework you'll present me. There is just 
> nothing that came up with the same execution.

Not what I've heard.  Thankfully, I've been able to avoid using 
PHP, but like John, I wonder what you think it does right in its 
scaling.

> You can say whatever you want about the languages (and there is 
> a lot to say !) but it gets its execution model right for 
> scaling, while everybody gets it wrong. And apparently, getting 
> your execution model right is more important than all the quirk 
> you pour into the language.
>
> Actually, that's not surprising, Rasmus Ledorf is a specialist 
> of the web, while he doesn't knows much about PL both 
> theoretically and practically (by his own admission). As a 
> result, you get a passable language, but you know what ? That's 
> not the important part.

Actually, it is.  What percentage of the PHP code out there needs 
to scale much?  Facebook is the exception that proves the rule.  
I disagree with your notion that all the large orgs you mentioned 
as PHP users are dispassionately comparing a bunch of languages 
and chose PHP because it was the _only one that scales_ to the 
extent they need, and that was so important to them that they 
overlooked all its other problems.  And even if PHP scales better 
as you claim, that's not particularly important for most of the 
PHP code out there.

> You can go for it, I've read these article already. Yet, 
> Facebook as the strongest engineering team I've worked with, 
> and not by a thin margin. Maybe some of the people writing on 
> the subject have a strongest team, but statistically, it is 
> very improbable that more than a ridiculously small fraction of 
> them actually do.

Several people argue in those reddit threads that the problem 
likely isn't weak engineers but a corporate culture that doesn't 
value a designed architecture and code quality.  Perhaps that 
hasn't mattered so far, but it likely will at some point.

> Nobody cares about what some guy on reddit think about the 
> number of classes there is in the iOS app. What matter is 
> delivering value to users and customers. And as a matter of 
> fact half of the top 10 apps are Facebook owned. This is not a 
> one time lucky shot, this is just a working methodology that 
> delivers.
>
> Just from the comment this one is delicious : "This kind of 
> attitude is so anti-user." Yeah sure, Facebook is anti users. 
> It has just more than a billion of them, how many do your app 
> has ?

If you give away a free app that lets people share pics with each 
other and that's funded by VC millions, you can get very popular. 
  Instagram and Snapchat have also shown that.  That doesn't mean 
the tech is any good or that the company will last.

> As to Gresham's law, it's kind of defeated by the move to hack 
> (http://hacklang.org/) isn't it. But let's not get the facts 
> get in the way of a good story.

Doesn't that prove it?  Why create something that you feel is 
better otherwise?  And assuming Hack _is_ better, not like it's 
killing PHP yet, further supporting the law. ;)

> Node.js is used at linkedin, paypal, ebay, netflix, uber, and 
> who know else. Realistically, what is the probability that all 
> these companies are staffed by morons and still succeed at the 
> scale they do ? Negligible.

Well, to begin with, none are running their core services on 
node.js that I know of.  Is it possible that they all have their 
usual quota of morons simply picking node.js for smaller projects 
that don't matter because it's the current coolness?  Very likely.

> Long story short, nothing reach the level of usage PHP, Node.js 
> or other techno has at random. You can only go so far not 
> knowing what you are doing. When you see something that big, 
> and when it has obvious flaws (I mean, it is not like it is 
> difficult to find problems in Node.js or PHP), it is really 
> need to take step back and wonder, what did they get right ? 
> Because obviously, they got something right. In fact they got 
> something SO right that it can get over flaws on other aspects. 
> These are lesson in delivering value to users. One should learn 
> from it rather than dismissing it.

Of course they got something right, as there are scores of 
languages that sit unused.  But that doesn't mean they are 
technically any good or even worthwhile solutions for what 
they're being used for.  Users choose tools for the wrong reasons 
all the time.

> Get over your proudness. Node.js and PHP answer actual needs 
> that is what matters. It doesn't matter how much inconsistency 
> there is in the languages when no alternative does better.

Not proud, I've argued in this forum in the past that scripting 
languages have an audience that D is unlikely to make much of an 
inroads into.  They simply optimize programmer convenience over 
efficiency and that's an acceptable tradeoff in certain niches.  
However, even in that market, there are badly-designed languages 
that do unreasonably well.

Not interested in an argument here, so I'll end with a 
constructive question: what do you believe D "should learn from 
[PHP/JS] rather than dismissing it?"