On 8/16/16 3:29 PM, Andres Freund wrote:
Well, having typed pg_list.h style lists, ilist.h linked lists, hash-tables, and proper typechecks for pg_nodes.h instead of the NodeTag stuff, would surely make life easier.
I certainly wish parts of the system brought code and "data" together in a better way. Nodes are an example; all the Walker stuff in the planner/executor is another. (I'm not saying C++ would make that better, just saying those are parts of the code I find it much harder to grok.)
But given the small subset of C++ available on all our supported platforms... I think we'd first need to make the decision to cut support for some platforms, before using C++. Which imo is a distinct task from *allowing* to compile with a C++ compiler.
Exactly. If we at least maintain support for compiling that means people can experiment with other enhancements in a way that's much more compatible with normal community contribution practices, which makes it far more likely for that stuff to be accepted.
As for the backwards compatibility... the stance I've seen the community take is cost vs benefit. Right now the benefits are completely hypothetical, because no one could realistically propose a patch to use C++ (or maybe even Rust) features.
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