Ugly syntax

Am I the only one that thinks that the C++ syntax is ugly when you are getting more advanced?. If you just use simple classes no stl and use a workflow similar to C it looks really crisp and is easy to read. But when I add muliple inheritance. maps and pointers I think it is flat out ugly to read. I know some of it is my lack of deeper knowledge. What do you guys think?. What if you compare to C# that isn't as advanced or power full but it always sems to stay clean and easy to read.

you're asking opinion. my opinion is no. Sloppy code is ugly, not C++. I've seen much uglier code written in C than I have in C++. Weither it be because of macros, globals, gotos, externs whatever, C is NASTY. Multiple inheritance is not bad. Poor use of it is. ActiveX/COM is ALL using multiple inheritance for its interfaces. There is nothing wrong with that.

pointers? you think pointers are hard to deal with? how is that different than C?

And the error messages get worse too.

This is an error message I had in MSVC++.NET when I made the simple mistake to try to push a A* to a vector that contained A.

http://strandmark.com/prog_fel.gif

well alternatively you could turn to COBOL or BASIC :)

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade C++ for anything. I don't have a problem with pointers it's just that when you mix all the powerfull C++ components together I think it gets really cumbersome to both read and type. I know the reason C++ is harder then anything else is that it is more powerfull then anything else but I often get the feeling that the code syntax is just blocks randomly stacked ontop of eachother. This is of course due to the history of C++ and compability requerments with C and the latest .NET add on? Use Cobol or Basic?? Get real!!

I agree that on first glance a section of C++ code with templates, typedefs and inheritance everywhere can look a total eyesore....

Dean posted a section of code on Flashdaddee and was complaining about how the typedefs make the language look bad.....had to agree...on first glance it looked nasty :)

I suppose though that once you have a basic idea of what a section of code is trying to achieve, it makes reading it easier.......

I agree with you there Fordy. Once you figured out what it is supposed to do it all make sense, and no other syntax would make sense. I guess it looks complicated just because it is. I read something that Bjarne wrote as a replay to a similar question and his point was that if Java, C,C#, Basic,,etc was as advanced as C++ those languishes(sp) would be hard to read to.

are typedefs not a C feature?

If you read stroustrups book most of the code looks clean.
I guess otherwise no one would use
c++.

You can do little things like typedef your iterators and if
you think a variable is too long you can always create
a referance to it. I like Upper and then lower case typedef.
So I would do
typedef int Int_32. Most people do
typedef int INT_32 but I think that shouts out too
much to the reader. hungarian notation looks
ugly. But using little
of hungarian notation such as p, m_ or n looks ok in some
places. Then again hungarian notation is ugly.

template code is really harder
to read/write. I think most people write it using something like int and then go over and change it to use templates.