The existential threat against C++ and where to go from here
summary
Government agencies (NSA, CISA, White House) push for migration away from C/C++ toward memory-safe languages, citing systemic memory-safety failures; Google pilots rewriting high-risk components in Rust and Linux and Microsoft add Rust support. C++ cannot become safely memory-safe without removing undefined behavior, adding a borrow checker, and replacing large parts of the standard library. Circle demonstrates a C++-compatible borrow checker + new standard library prototype that requires code restructuring to pass; Carbon plans interoperability first and safety later, so migration is incremental and costly.
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chapters (19)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:30Memory safety problem in C++
- 3:40Government warnings
- 6:31Industry shifts to memory-safe
- 8:15Memory safety in C++
- 13:11Why memory safety is hard
- 14:20C++26 security limits
- 17:56C++ existential crisis
- 19:22Alternatives for new projects
- 23:13Requirements for replacement
- 24:42Circle fork overview
- 27:32Circle or Carbon in standard
- 29:16Migrating to Carbon challenges
- 31:01Wait for new languages?
- 31:42C++ no longer right tool
- 33:52Recommendations for C++ devs
- 35:17Gradual migration strategies
- 37:47Change management
- 43:23Q&A
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