🚀 C12 – C, C++, and Rust: A Comparative Study

Advanced Programming Course Project | Systems programming models, safety, and performance.

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📌 Overview

This repository accompanies the C12 project for the Advanced Programming course. The project presents a comprehensive comparative study of C, C++, and Rust.

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🛠 Project Structure

📖 Part 1: Theoretical Analysis

A structured comparison documented in the report covering memory models, type systems, and safety guarantees.

💻 Part 2: Practical Code Examples

Minimal examples demonstrating how the same low-level problems are handled across languages.

code/
├── 🟦 c/          # Manual allocation (malloc/free), pointers, return codes
├── 🟪 cpp/        # RAII, templates, smart pointers, exceptions
└── 🦀 rust/       # Ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, Result/Option

🔍 Language Comparison Summary

Feature	C	C++	Rust
Abstraction	Minimal (Macros/Structs)	High (Classes/Templates)	Strict (Traits/Generics)
Error Handling	Return Codes	Exceptions (Try/Catch)	Algebraic (Result/Option)
Pointers	Raw Pointers (Unsafe)	Smart Pointers (Safer)	References (Borrowing)
Memory	Manual (malloc/free)	RAII (Destructors)	Ownership & Lifetimes

📄 Documentation

The full technical report, including detailed analysis and discussion of design trade-offs, is available here:

👉 Download Project Report (PDF)

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Developed as part of the Advanced Programming curriculum.

📂 Implementation Details

The practical examples highlight key language-level trade-offs:

• Abstractions: How macros compare to templates and traits in systems programming.
• Error Handling: Traditional return codes vs. exception handling vs. robust type-safe Results.
• Memory Management: Manual allocation (C) vs. automatic cleanup via RAII (C++) vs. compile-time ownership (Rust).
• Pointer Usage: Raw pointer arithmetic vs. safer smart pointers vs. strict borrowing rules.