Why C++ instead of C#?

[Henk]

I used C++ in the past. I liked .h files. I use C# now but I don't see a reason to go back.
Maybe anyone going back to C++ can answer the question why use C++ instead of C# ?

[klx]

Performance is the biggest reason for me. If you're not too concerned about performance, C# is fine.

[Sopel]

No garbage collector and easier to optimize on the lowest level, more control over the resulting code.

[Henk]

No garbage collector and easier to optimize on the lowest level, more control over the resulting code.

I don't know maybe I can stop garbage collection and add some destructors. I forgot if that is possible in C#.

[klx]

I don't know maybe I can stop garbage collection and add some destructors. I forgot if that is possible in C#.

You shouldn't be allocating in the first place.

[Henk]

I don't know maybe I can stop garbage collection and add some destructors. I forgot if that is possible in C#.

You shouldn't be allocating in the first place.

Yes bad programming habit. Unless efficiency is not a problem in that part of the chess engine.
O wait. Maybe it can still trigger a garbage collect later on.

[lithander]

A disadvantage of C# is that the compiled program needs the .Net Runtime to run. Either your users have to install it or you have to create really bloated executables (20MB for a simple chess engine) where you include all dependencies in a the (now self-extracting) executable.

[amanjpro]

It all depends on your goal, if you want to create the best engine ever, and you don't care about the effort, go for ASM, if you also want to keep your sanity but still create a very competitive engine, go for a language that you have almost total control (C, C++, Rust maybe?)

If you want to learn a language, use that language, there is no one size fits all

[Henk]

From msdn:
"Allocating memory from the managed heap is faster than unmanaged memory allocation. Because the runtime allocates memory for an object by adding a value to a pointer, it's almost as fast as allocating memory from the stack. In addition, because new objects that are allocated consecutively are stored contiguously in the managed heap, an application can access the objects quickly."

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet ... ndamentals

[lithander]

From msdn:
"Allocating memory from the managed heap is faster than unmanaged memory allocation. Because the runtime allocates memory for an object by adding a value to a pointer, it's almost as fast as allocating memory from the stack. In addition, because new objects that are allocated consecutively are stored contiguously in the managed heap, an application can access the objects quickly."

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet ... ndamentals

That might be unintuitive to some having made bad experiences with managed languages in the past but it matches with my experience. At least when using the .Net Runtime. C# in Unity is a different matter entirely.

An example to illustrate the smartness of the runtime and the garbage collector: For each node I explore in the search I create a new Position instance with the new operator. With 1M NPS you'd expect a lot of work for the garbage collector because it has to allocate and free memory for a million objects. But if you use a memory profiler you realize that the runtime is reusing the instances. If you're searching to depth 12 you just need 12 at the same time.

Another example: For lists of reference types it can be faster to use a new List<T> than to reuse an existing one by clearing it. Clearing actually visits every element in the lists and sets the pointer to null. But just letting the list go out of scope achieves the same thing much cheaper. The runtime can clean up the instance and all the references it contains directly.