Dispatches from the compiler front

Good design means good encapsulation**. Objected-oriented _syntax_ is most useful when at the outset you're unsure how to encapsulate the data and segregate the logic--both strongly related. In that case, you use a set of generic patterns which will, presumably, get you close to the mark until the solution makes itself clear. Once its clear you probably won't bother re-writing it.

But where something is heavily centered on an abstract algorithm, how to encapsulate the data and segregate the logic is usually self-evident. In this case object-oriented syntax doesn't buy you much if anything. Data structures don't need to be generic and protected with getters and setters. You don't need dynamic methods. One could even argue that C is preferable, being a much simpler language; things like inheritance become more obsfuscation than explication.

So, let's look at LLVM: not only is it a compiler with an easily discernible purpose with suggestive algorithms and data structures, but its centered on an even larger, more comprehensive meta-abstraction: manipulation and transform of bytecodes. This suggests that the choice of C++ has far less to do with the code quality than other choices.

Add to the mix the fact that GCC has been gutted and rebuilt several times over, and that it's 15+ years older than LLVM, I don't think it's reasonable to draw any conclusions whatsoever about C v. C++ in this comparison.

** "object-oriented tricks" sounds a little ambiguous. Any well-encapsulated design is bound to be "object-oriented", at least if juggling lots of data and performing lots of complex transformations internally. Contrast that with well-encapsulated design of unix shell utilities. You wouldn't say grep or sed is object-oriented internally; nor if you put them together. But that sort of segregation of work doesn't suite compiler design, so inevitably a well-written compiler will be object-oriented, no matter the language. The issue is whether C++ makes it easier to accomplish object-orientation. And I'll argue only to the degree the overall design is indeterminate. This is similar to choosing a scripting language over a compiled one. Scripting languages are more attractive the more ill-defined the problem.