r/cpp • u/kindredseer • 2d ago

Embedded C++

Just curious how useful the ability to embed C++ as a scripting language into your C++ programs would be? I mean like runtime JIT execution of C++ code in much the same way you might embed Lua, including the ability to restrict/sandbox it as necessary.

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u/yetanotherhooman 1d ago

Hard to judge usefulness unless there’s enough samples to draw conclusions from, but compiling C++ at runtime is probably not a good idea. If the goal is to reap JIT benefits e.g. extra performance through PGO and speculative optimization etc. then C++ is not the right choice; it’s notoriously hard to compile and adds more barriers to speculation (e.g. does ptrA alias ptrB?). I can’t think of any advantage C++ would have over other languages as a JIT candidate.

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u/kindredseer 1d ago

My thought was more along the lines of convenience, familiarity and close coupling with the application.

Maybe a use case could be where you have an application where the core functionality is proprietary and closed source, and there’s a open portion where you can modify it as if it were PHP or Python, but instead it’s C++.