Our alternatives are Java and .NET languages, with native bindings to C++ libraries.
C++ alternatives still need to grow up to this kind of mixed language development, where I can have .NET code with C++ libraries and easily debug across them on the same Visual Studio session.
Same applies to Java and C++ development experience.
Not sure how fair to newcomers (as in languages) this requirement is.
F.ex. when coding in Erlang/Elixir I can use an excellent bridging library between their VM and Rust. There's also an excellent support for working with C libraries. Not sure what else can be expected.
Maybe I am not reading you correctly and I apologise if so. It just kind of sounded like "the newer languages must be compatible with 20+ different ABI standards if they want us the older programmers working in C/C++ to adopt them"?
Back on the original topic, I completely understand if a project has too much baggage and sunk cost so as to make even a partial migration (and hardening via using memory-safe languages and/or professional paid code analysis tools) unrealistic.
Naturally it isn't fair, but one cannot expect teams to drop velocity and diminish their productivity only on basis of adopting a new language that doesn't support existing workflows, IDE tooling and libraries.
It is like telling someone to delivering games in Unity and Unreal that they should use Amethyst instead, without understanding what it means to actually having a team working in those ecosystems.
Naturally Rust will get there, however it took C++ 30 years to be where it is today, and that is what any replacement attempt should take into consideration.
This is probably a much larger and not very relevant to the topic here discussion but I feel a lot of the newer breed of languages don't emphasise IDE tooling very much (not in the sense of Visual Studio / Eclipse and the like at least; VS Code gets a lot of attention though). So I fear if that's an expectation from a certain group of devs that this might already be a generational difference that's impossible to overcome.
That being said, I agree -- existing teams can't be expected to just run away to the new thing, that much is true.
My favourite language -- Elixir -- is the same. I also quite admire Rust's and Golang's tooling.
CLI tooling is the best it ever was in history (from where I stand at least). But IDE tooling isn't a first class citizen for many languages these days, is what I was saying.
> C++ has a standard that's too long and hard to understand, so let's use a language without any standard whatsoever instead!
Good lord, if that's the kind of human capital that's involved in making next-generation languages, then I have no doubt what will still be used to write serious software in 2080.
You'd be more helpful if you specified what else would you deem appropriate -- as opposed to resorting to snarky sarcasm that brings nothing interesting to the discussion except supposedly degrade people whose tech choices you disagree with.
The phrase 'undefined behavior' only makes sense in the context of an ISO standard.
For any particular combination of compiler, OS and computer architecture there are no 'undefined behaviors'; you only care about the concept if you want portability to a different compiler/OS/architecture.
So the idea that C++ sucks because of 'undefined behavior', so let's use some random language without an ISO standard or any portability guarantees at all is completely and utterly insane.
Still, have you guys looked at alternatives -- and seriously evaluate them? Rust, Zig, Nim, D, others?
If you tell me "we can't afford to, we have too much work" then that's also a valid answer (for a while at least).