• xiii@lemmy.world
    8·
    6 days ago

    I was working on a C code base with classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, all done by hands and macros.

    Something like

    typedef struct s_some_class {
    void (*method)(this *s_some_class);
} t_some_class;

    Overall, learning C was the best enabler in my whole career. For instance I was learning Python by tinkering with CPython VM, so when I see these ‘WAT’ quircks I know exactly what’s up.

    • bestelbus22@lemmy.worldOP
      4·
      6 days ago

      Interesting, how did they do inheritance? Something like void *super? Also why not switch to CPP if you wanna do OOP?

      • xiii@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 days ago

        In general, ‘classes’ declarations were done with macro. I don’t remember the exact code — something akin to

        BEGIN_CLASS(A, Parent);
CLASS_MEMBER(a...)
END_CLASS();

        The project had started before C++ existed, and the switch would be too costly. It’s not just OOP part, also reflection mechanism with bindings to the homemade scripting language, and multi-platform UI library. It was a gem of its time.

          • xiii@lemmy.world
            2·
            5 days ago

            Revolutionary technologies of the '80 make me appreciate modern programming languages and especially tooling much more.