On: GNU Coding Standards: Writing Robust Programs

[varjag]

C++ up to and including '98 spec was terrible from security perspective, not a iota better than plain C.

[pjmlp → varjag]

On the contrary,

- proper string and vector types (most compilers allow to enable bounds checking anyway)

- stronger rules for type conversions

- reference types for parameters

- better tooling for immutable data structures

- memory allocation primitives instead of getting sizeof wrong to malloc()

- collection library instead of reinventing the wheel in each project

- RAII

- smart pointers

- templates instead of error prone macros

- namespacing (usefull in large scale projects with prefix tricks)

[marrs → pjmlp]

I'm more interested in the the actual statistics for security vulnerabilities found in C vs. C++ programmes, rather than theoretical benefits one language might have over the other.

[pjmlp → marrs]

Any C++ vulnerabiliy caused by copy-paste compatibility with C is by definition a C vulnerabiliy.

[smhenderson → pjmlp]

All of which were heavy enough at the time to slow programs down enough that people chose to not use them in favor of faster, more portable C.

[pjmlp → smhenderson]

That is why Turbo Vision was written in C++ for MS-DOS, Mac OS transitioned from Object Pascal into C++ and Quake made use of Watcom C++.

[morelisp → pjmlp]

id's engine was famously C, not C++, all the way through Quake 3.