Question

I am planning to participate in development of a code written in C language for Monte Carlo analysis of complex problems. This codes allocates huge data arrays in memory to speed up its performance, therefore the author of the code has chosen C instead of C++ claiming that one can make faster and more reliable (concerning memory leaks) code with C.

Do you agree with that? What would be your choice, if you need to store 4-16 GB of data arrays in memory during calculation?

Answer 1

Definitely C++. By default, there’s no significant difference between the two, but C++ provides a couple of things C doesn’t:

1. constructors/destructors. These let you automate most memory management, improving reliability.
2. per-class allocators. These let you optimize allocation based on how particular objects are designed and/or used. This can be particularly useful if you need a large number of small objects (to give one obvious example).

The bottom line is that in this respect, C provides absolutely no possibility of an advantage over C++. In the very worst case, you can do exactly the same things in the same ways.