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"Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI"

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  "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2025-12-30 19:37 -0600
    Re: "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2025-12-31 04:21 +0100
    Re: "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2025-12-31 15:40 +0200
      Re: "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2025-12-31 14:26 -0600
    Re: "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" wij <wyniijj5@gmail.com> - 2026-01-01 09:13 +0800

#123198 — "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI"

"Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers 
keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" by Herb Sutter
  
https://herbsutter.com/2025/12/30/software-taketh-away-faster-than-hardware-giveth-why-c-programmers-keep-growing-fast-despite-competition-safety-and-ai/

"Before we dive into the data below, let’s put the most important 
question up front: Why have C++ and Rust been the fastest-growing major 
programming languages from 2022 to 2025?"

"Primarily, it’s because throughout the history of computing “software 
taketh away faster than hardware giveth.” Our demand for solving 
ever-larger computing problems consistently outstrips our ability to 
build greater computing capacity, with no end in sight. Every few years, 
people wonder whether our hardware is just too fast to be useful, until 
the future’s next big software demand breaks across the industry in a 
huge wake-up moment of the kind that iOS delivered in 2007 and ChatGPT 
delivered in November 2022. AI is only the latest source of demand to 
squeeze the most performance out of available hardware."

The world’s two biggest computing constraints in 2025"

"Quick quiz: What are the two biggest constraints on computing growth in 
2025? What’s in shortest supply?"

"Take a moment to answer that yourself it before reading on…"

— — —

"If you answered exactly “power and chips,” you’re right — and in the 
right order."

This is why I want to convert my calculation engine from Fortran to C++. 
  C++ has won the war for programmers.

Lynn

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#123200

W dniu 31.12.2025 o 02:37, Lynn McGuire pisze:
> This is why I want to convert my calculation engine from Fortran to C++. 
>   C++ has won the war for programmers.

But: What is wrong with Fortran?!?
And: Is it not possible to make bridge/facade which allow to access 
Fortran lib from C++?

For me bridge/facade pattern is right development way. Not rewrite.
Do you remember what was happened to Netscape when they decide rewrite 
they browser again and again? First time they have "revolutionary idea" 
to rewrite browser in Java. But it was slow as expected by normal 
coders. Then they decide to rewrite they browser again, but when they 
were almost finished, they must call bankruptcy (and then Mozilla appear).
Funny or not many of USONA deciders are very keen to rewrite entire 
systems in C++. One of recent example I recall in my art. under title 
"Answer to the Appeal of the Creator of the C++ Language Bjarne 
Stroustrup" in the chapter 8 Summary. I published it fortnight ago on 
the comp.lang.c++ . And it is still available under URL:

<https://energokod.gda.pl/monografie/Answer%20to%20the%20Appeal%20of%20the%20Creator%20of%20the%20C++%20Language%20Bjarne%20Stroustrup.pdf>

It is available for all for free (as free beer).
BTW: There are is also Polish version of this article (also for free):

<https://energokod.gda.pl/monografie/Odp.%20Na%20Apel%20Tw%C3%B3rcy%20j.%20C++%20Bjarne%20Stroustrup.pdf>

-- 
Have a nice day!
Jacek Marcin Jaworski,    Pruszcz Gd., woj. Pomorskie, Polska🇵🇱, EU🇪🇺;
tel.: +48-609-170-742,   najlepiej w godz.: 5:15-5:55 lub 17:15-17:55;
<jmj@energokod.gda.pl>, gpg: 4A541AA7A6E872318B85D7F6A651CC39244B0BFA;
Domowa s. WWW:                             <https://energokod.gda.pl>;
Mini Netykieta:         <https://energokod.gda.pl/MiniNetykieta.html>;
Mailowa Samoobrona:             <https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/pl>.

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#123202

On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 19:37:07 -0600
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> The world’s two biggest computing constraints in 2025"
> 
> "Quick quiz: What are the two biggest constraints on computing growth
> in 2025? What’s in shortest supply?"
> 
> "Take a moment to answer that yourself it before reading on…"
> 
> — — —
> 
> "If you answered exactly “power and chips,” you’re right — and in the 
> right order."
> 
> This is why I want to convert my calculation engine from Fortran to
> C++. C++ has won the war for programmers.
> 
> Lynn
> 

That does not follow.
You are converting from one fast compiled language to another fast
compiled language. That is not going to make your program more
power-efficient or more silicon-area-efficient.
If anything, out of the box Fortran is more optimizible than C++.
In order to gain near-parity with Fortran one has to use non-standard
dialects of C++, like  'g++ -ffast-math'.

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#123203

On 12/31/2025 7:40 AM, Michael S wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 19:37:07 -0600
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>
>> The world’s two biggest computing constraints in 2025"
>>
>> "Quick quiz: What are the two biggest constraints on computing growth
>> in 2025? What’s in shortest supply?"
>>
>> "Take a moment to answer that yourself it before reading on…"
>>
>> — — —
>>
>> "If you answered exactly “power and chips,” you’re right — and in the
>> right order."
>>
>> This is why I want to convert my calculation engine from Fortran to
>> C++. C++ has won the war for programmers.
>>
>> Lynn
>>
> 
> That does not follow.
> You are converting from one fast compiled language to another fast
> compiled language. That is not going to make your program more
> power-efficient or more silicon-area-efficient.
> If anything, out of the box Fortran is more optimizible than C++.
> In order to gain near-parity with Fortran one has to use non-standard
> dialects of C++, like  'g++ -ffast-math'.

Whoa, a Fortran fanboi in the C++ group.

My calculation engine is 800,000 lines of F77 code and 50,000 lines of 
C++ code.  My goals are to get to a uniform software language and 64 
bit.  I have converted about 100,000 lines of F77 code to C++ so far 
using a highly customized version of F2C.  I have been working on this 
software since 1975 so I know a little about it.

BTW, moving F77 code to F90 and above is non trivial.  Especially 
Fortran code that started with Fortran II compilers around 1964 or so. 
Especially Fortran code that uses many Fortran extensions and dynamic 
memory allocation since 1978.

BTW2, my Windows user interface is 600,000 lines of C++ code.  Back in 
the 1980s and 1990s, it was a 16 bit mixture of C and Smalltalk.  My 
staff and I converted it to 32 bit C++ in 2001 - 2003.  My customers 
loved the new speed and the size of the flowsheets that they could work 
with.

Lynn

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#123204

On Tue, 2025-12-30 at 19:37 -0600, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers 
> keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI" by Herb Sutter
>   
> https://herbsutter.com/2025/12/30/software-taketh-away-faster-than-hardware-giveth-why-c-programmers-keep-growing-fast-despite-competition-safety-and-ai/
> 
> "Before we dive into the data below, let’s put the most important 
> question up front: Why have C++ and Rust been the fastest-growing major 
> programming languages from 2022 to 2025?"
> 
> "Primarily, it’s because throughout the history of computing “software 
> taketh away faster than hardware giveth.” Our demand for solving 
> ever-larger computing problems consistently outstrips our ability to 
> build greater computing capacity, with no end in sight. Every few years, 
> people wonder whether our hardware is just too fast to be useful, until 
> the future’s next big software demand breaks across the industry in a 
> huge wake-up moment of the kind that iOS delivered in 2007 and ChatGPT 
> delivered in November 2022. AI is only the latest source of demand to 
> squeeze the most performance out of available hardware."
> 
> The world’s two biggest computing constraints in 2025"
> 
> "Quick quiz: What are the two biggest constraints on computing growth in 
> 2025? What’s in shortest supply?"
> 
> "Take a moment to answer that yourself it before reading on…"
> 
> — — —

C++ is a very multi-paradim programming language which supports self-cheating.
I.e. users can easily write programs full of professional-looking codes which
complete nothing but syntax conversion of users' unclear/illogic ideas, which
is part of the nature of C++'s expressiveness. And, it is illusion that C++ 
program is fast and small.

But, in general, C++ is a good language. Using C++ or any other language 
'professionally' takes time to achieve, not merely 'mimicing'.

> "If you answered exactly “power and chips,” you’re right — and in the 
> right order."
> 
> This is why I want to convert my calculation engine from Fortran to C++. 
>   C++ has won the war for programmers.

Not a valid reason to rewirte (out of superstition?).

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