> Well, people said the same thing to me when I started writing OS/2 drivers in
> C++. Nowadays, it's very common for non-*nix operating systems, especially
> Windows.
You call windows an OS ?? I call it a bunch of function calls with way to
many arguments written by a bunch of ***** that like to nag people instead
of making an OS stable.
> The real advantage comes when you're writing a driver where the design is
> inherently object-oriented. I can't give an example in Linux, because I've
> only been writing Linux drivers for 6 months, but in OS/2, there are tons of
> places where a little OO lovin' goes a long way. My initial use was in
> multimedia drivers. In OS/2, the adio drivers need to keep track of multiple
> "streams" of audio data. OS/2's advanced multimedia subsystem lets multiple
> applications open audio streams simultaneously, and the driver has to keep
> track of them. If it has the hardware, it can play the streams simultaneously.
> Otherwise, it has to manage stopping one stream to play the other.
Agree, OO could make life easier.
Some arguments why not to use it in the kernel :
- C++ gives overhead. With something like a kernel that's unwanted.
- Things like exception handling is hard to do in a kernel.
- The're a lot more people that know C than C++
And I probably forgot a few :)
> I've oversimplified it, but that's the general idea.
>
> This design is inherently object-oriented. The old C code for audio drivers
> was horribly convoluted. When I rewrote it in C++, there was less code, it was
> easier to maintain, and ther resulting binary was actually smaller and faster!
> And that's all because the language fit the design better.
Igmar
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