Top all-time · #219
Herb Sutter
Personal blog · herbsutter.comprogrammingsystems
Herb Sutter writes Sutter’s Mill, a personal blog at herbsutter.com about programming and systems. Since 2010, 206 different Hacker News readers have linked it 343 times, most often “The Moore's Law free lunch is over. Now welcome to the hardware jungle.”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Herb Sutter's C++ articles (the GotW series, his FAQ on the standard's release schedule, compile-time dependencies) as references on C++ design and practice questions.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- Called the best summary of minimizing compile-time dependencies and worth internalizing; the FAQ on shipping is called opinionated and liked.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Herb Sutter on software development
Most-linked posts?
- The Moore's Law free lunch is over. Now welcome to the hardware jungle.13 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2011-12-30
- Metaclasses: Thoughts on generative C++9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2017-07-26
- C++ Lifetime profile v1.0 posted7 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2018-09-21
- /2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/6 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2012-09-26
- Why the C++ standard ships every three years6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2019-07-13
- Almost Always Auto (2013)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-12-04
- A Heterogeneous Supercomputer in Every Pocket (2012)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-09-27
- C++ 20 embraces design by contract6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-07-03
- /2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/5 people · 28 mentions · first linked 2016-04-13
- EDG C++ front end to become open-source in 20265 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2025-11-11
What Hacker News says?
If you want a different but equally opinionated perspective of how to ship at scale, I really like Herb Sutter's FAQ on why the C++ standard ships every 3 years (from 2019): https://herbsutter.com/2019/07/13/draft-faq-why-does-the-c-s...
Comment linking /2019/07/13/draft-faq-why-does-the-c-standard-ship-every-three-years/
on “How I ship projects at big tech companies”Submitted Bjarne Stroustrup on Dennis Ritchie: They said it couldn't be done, & he did it as a story · 402 points
HN discussionAll this is true. Note also that the C++ folks are putting a serious effort into reducing UB. See the "safe by default" section of this writeup [1]. See also my other comment [2] regarding the performance impact of this sort of change. Short answer: with sufficient optimization, smaller than one might think. [1]: https://herbsutter.com/2024/08/07/reader-qa-what-does-it-mea... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?i…
Comment linking /2024/08/07/reader-qa-what-does-it-mean-to-initialize-an-int/
on “How a 20 year old bug in GTA San Andreas surfaced in Windows 11 24H2”Submitted C++ 17 is Done as a story · 282 points
HN discussionI'm a bit distant from this stuff, but it looks like C++26 will have something like -ftrivial-auto-var-init enabled by default. See the "safe by default" section of [1]. For reference, the actual proposal that was accepted into C++26 is [2]. It discusses performance only in general, and it refers to an earlier analysis [3] for more details. This last reference describes regressions of around 0.5% in time and in code…
Comment linking /2024/08/07/reader-qa-what-does-it-mean-to-initialize-an-int/
on “How a 20 year old bug in GTA San Andreas surfaced in Windows 11 24H2”Submitted C++17 is formally approved as a story · 253 points
HN discussionI think the best summary of how to do this is to take a look at Herb Sutter's three article set on "Minimizing Compile-Time Dependencies". https://herbsutter.com/gotw/ "The Compilation Firewall", or pimpl idiom, is a clever mechanism for getting code out of the header: https://herbsutter.com/gotw/_100/
Comment linking /gotw/_100/
on “24-core CPU and I can’t move my mouse”Submitted Why the C++ standard ships every three years as a story · 229 points
HN discussionOnce you've got the basics down from a tutorial (old C++ or modern C++), move on to internalizing all the lessons here: https://isocpp.org/faq (what Marshall Cline's excellent C++ FAQ has become) and here: https://herbsutter.com/gotw/ (Not as organized, but Herb Sutter wrestles with the essential questions of how to deal with the tricky bits of C++) If you've got the cash, read Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyers.…
Comment linking /gotw/
on “Ask HN: Best way to learn modern C++?”Submitted C++ 11 Approved as a story · 203 points
HN discussionI had no idea what you were talking about, so I did my own research (ie - googled "type inference vs dynamic typing") and I stand corrected. https://herbsutter.com/2008/06/20/type-inference-vs-staticdy...
Comment linking /2008/06/20/type-inference-vs-staticdynamic-typing/
on “Pyre: Fast Type Checking for Python”Submitted Elements of Modern C++ Style as a story · 148 points
HN discussionFunny because for a long time the Microsoft MSVC team explicitly recommended compiling C code with a C++ compiler because they couldn't be arsed to update their C frontend for over two decades (which thankfully has changed now) ;) https://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-an...
Comment linking /2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/
on “The C23 edition of Modern C”Submitted C++ Safety, in Context as a story · 145 points
HN discussionSince Windows Vista, Windows has been transitioning to C++, hence why they don't care much more about ISO C beyond of what is required by ISO C++ standard compliance. https://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-an... https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/4oruo1/windows_10_code...
Comment linking /2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/
on “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan”Submitted The Moore's Law free lunch is over. Now welcome to the hardware jungle. as a story · 142 points
HN discussionBackwards compatibility is the reason why C++ became what it is today, and why it prevailed over other (similar/better?) languages designed at the time. Herb Sutter himself discusses this in the talk here: https://herbsutter.com/2020/07/30/c-on-sea-video-posted-brid...
Comment linking /2020/07/30/c-on-sea-video-posted-bridge-to-newthingia-extended/
on “All C++20 core language features with examples”Submitted Metaclasses: Thoughts on generative C++ as a story · 134 points
HN discussionNo it is not. It is two compilers bundled together and called by the same driver application. Microsoft will not update the C compiler and will focus only on the C++ one. As explained by their main architect: http://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and... Bundling C and C++ compilers together was a way for C++ vendors to ease the migration into C++ land, specially in the early days. There is no law…
Comment linking /2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/
on “Hello. I'm a compiler”Submitted Move, simply as a story · 117 points
HN discussionThey should contribute and use https://herbsutter.com/2018/09/20/lifetime-profile-v1-0-post...
Comment linking /2018/09/20/lifetime-profile-v1-0-posted/
on “Chromium project finds that 70% of security defects are memory safety problems”Submitted C++ Lifetime profile v1.0 posted as a story · 91 points
HN discussion> There are 2 normal ways to do things: work until you achieve the functionality you want and release it when that happens or work until an arbitrary date and release whatever you have at that point. Wise words. Herb Sutter wrote a long blog post on exactly this, with regard to how C++ language versions release on a schedule, whether or not your favourite feature is ready yet. https://herbsutter.com/2019/07/13/draft…
Comment linking /2019/07/13/draft-faq-why-does-the-c-standard-ship-every-three-years/
on “Hard deadlines are not user-first”Submitted Trip report: Fall ISO C++ standards meeting as a story · 88 points
HN discussionApps Hungarian v. System Hungarian: https://herbsutter.com/2008/07/15/hungarian-notation-is-clea...
Comment linking /2008/07/15/hungarian-notation-is-clearly-goodbad/
on “A bug that taught me more about PyTorch than years of using it”Submitted Taming the UB Monsters in C++ as a story · 87 points
HN discussionFor memory ownership, look no further than `std::unique_ptr`. With the features introduced in C++11, it is an elegant, inexpensive way to clearly and safely denote memory ownership and to have that memory cleaned up when it goes out of scope or handed off as you see for. If you are ever using bare pointers instead of `unique_ptr` you are probably doing it wrong. For more: http://herbsutter.com/2013/05/29/gotw-89-sol…
Comment linking /2013/05/29/gotw-89-solution-smart-pointers/
on “We have C++14”Submitted ISO C++11 Published as a story · 83 points
HN discussionBecause some people really hate C++ to their bones, hence this kind of stuff that keeps coming up. I was really disappointed that Microsoft decided to backtrack on C++'s is the future, after the new found Linux and FOSS love. https://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-an... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/c11-and-c17-standard-... Not that it matters much, as nowadays C and C++ have a new policy…
Comment linking /2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/
on “I write type-safe generic data structures in C”Submitted Trip report: Summer ISO C++ standards meeting in Toronto as a story · 82 points
HN discussion
