Re: implementation language [was: library for unicode collation in C for texi2any?]

[Gavin Smith]

On Thu, Oct 12, 2023 at 10:25:23AM -0700, Per Bothner wrote:
> On 10/12/23 02:39, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > There is a translation to C of texi2any code going on, for the future,
> > after the next release, mainly for the conversion to HTML in a first step.
> 
> I've always thought that C++ is the obvious implementation language for 
> texi2any.
> The structure of the Perl code is probably a lot easier and cleaner to map 
> into C++
> (using classes and simple single inheritance) than to plain C.
> 
> C++ has a more extensive and useful standard library than C.
> 
> One data point: Gcc was converted to C++ some years ago.
> 
> Re-writing texi2any in Perl turns out to have been a mistake; switching to C
> seems like it would be another mistake. But hey - I'm not the one doing the 
> work.

Calling it a "mistake" is a very strong statement!  Why do you say that?
Surely texi2any 7.0.3 (2023) is more functional than makeinfo 4.13 (2008)
was.

Perl has many flaws as a programming language and in an ideal world it
would become "legacy" and fade away, but the following quote applies:

"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about
and the ones nobody uses" -- Bjarne Stroustrop (inventor of C++).

And despite its quirks, Perl remains a well-documented, well-maintained
and reliable piece of software.

I'm not much of a fan of C++ tbh.

texi2any uses a small amount of Perl class inheritance but not very
much.