Dat One Dev

Posted on Jun 19

Carbon: Will It Replace C++

#carbon #cpp #c #systems

Introduction

Let's just jump straight into the point.
Why are there so many C replacements in the market? There are this many replacements that a technical writer or a content creator could create a series called "WILL IT REPLACE C++," and tell all the programming languages that are made or have the potential to replace C++

Wait a second, isn't that what I am doing currently?

Carbon: The Language That Wants to Be C++'s Successor

Created by: Google
First announced: July 2022, at CppNorth
Status: Experimental / Pre-alpha

Why was Carbon created?

As a wise old man had said.

With great power comes great complexity.

And that's how I define C++, it is also too hard.

It's this hard that big companies had to jump in and stop it, and find an alternative or create an alternative.

That's what Carbon was created for. The goals in the mind of Google were:

Performance critical, like C++
Interoperability with existing C++ code
Safe and modern syntax
Fast compilation
Tooling and ergonomics first

Basically, Carbon wants to be modern but not restrictive.

Syntax

If you’ve written Rust, Kotlin, Go, or Swift, Carbon will feel very good at first sight.

Variable Declaration

var x: i32 = 5;

Functions

fn Add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 {
  return a + b;
}

By a simple glance at the syntax, I think it's just very GO-like syntax if I try to add some more symbols to the GO syntax.

(Hey, it's me from the future. After some hours of this post, I realised this is more Zig-like syntax than Go one.)

In GO we use var x int32 = 5
and
In Carbon you write var x: i32 = 5;

This is what I would write in GO:

func Add(a int32, b int32) int32 {
    return a + b
}

And above, you have already seen the Carbon Version

Problems / Controversies

Not production-ready.
Yet another language instead of improving C++?
There are better alternatives out there

Answer: Will It Replace C++

Carbon has the potential to partially replace C++ in the future...

…but only if:

It matures quickly compared to other C++ Alternatives
Gains real-world adoption outside Google
Avoids becoming another Google Graveyard project.
Gets wide tooling and compiler support

I give Carbon a 5/10 Score for C++ Replacement

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