Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!mcnc!uvaarpa!murdoch!murdoch.acc.virginia.edu!bglenden From: bglenden@colobus.cv.nrao.edu (Brian Glendenning) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: C++ - safe for long-lived projects? Message-ID: Date: 30 Jan 91 21:33:26 GMT Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory Lines: 33 Hi. We're about to rewrite from the ground up a radio-astronomical image processing system (AIPS). The present AIPS is about 10 years old and consists of well over 500k lines of (mostly F77) code. The new system will probably last as long and be at least as big. C++ looks like it has many attractive features. We do have some concerns that don't deal explicitly with the language features however: 1. Is C++ here to stay: Is it going to be available on machines from workstations to supercomputers (this seems to be the case now). Will C++ be on the massively parallel machines that everyone says are coming? 2. Portability: Are the C++ implementations close enough so that different ports should be reasonable? Hints about what features to avoid to allow the code to be reasonably portable? When will we likely have a draft proposed C++ standard? An actual standard? 3. Efficiency: Although our "Math" libraries may well be in fortran for speed, is the language otherwise efficient? e.g. will the C code that cfront produces vectorize on a Cray or Convex? Any other comments/experiences/hints would be appreciated, particularly about large scientic systems. If possible, please respond via email - I will provide a summary to the net when replies have stopped coming in. Thank you. Brian -- Brian Glendenning - National Radio Astronomy Observatory bglenden@nrao.edu bglenden@nrao.bitnet (804) 296-0286