Thursday
Room 1
09:00 - 10:00
(UTC+02)
Talk (60 min)
Hello Operator: Making The Call for C
Is it possible to have operators in C in a way that does not compromise the tenets of the language?
In this session, we walk through how to design a new language feature in an older language like C. We discuss technical constraints, existing implementations, user expectations, and ways to understand and handle the complexity of allowing for e.g. adding 2 "vec3"s together. We discuss algorithms for how to match arguments to functions, and ways to achieve this without the typical, potentially binary-bloating techniques that C++ or Rust have to deploy to get the same work done.
This feature does not currently exist in C, so this is an exercise in how to engage with designing under constraints (in this case, 50+ years of it) for software developers!