coreutils & building w/C++

[L A Walsh]

I was wondering if there has ever been any consideration given
to migrating the coreutils to C++, or at least making it such
that it would build cleanly under either?

It would seem, theoretically, that the resulting binaries should
be ~roughly~ equivalent (though that may be a naive impression),
but it would open the door for future inclusion or refactoring using
C++ paradigms...which might result in easier maintenance, code reuse,
type-checking and possibly better optimization in some cases. 

Maybe it's already been done and the result wasn't so great?  If so,
how long ago was it done -- i.e. was it done with the current C++
standard?

FWIW, I gave it a spin, and there seem to be several "__THROW"
keywords.  I'm not familiar with those in the C-standard.  What
do they mean?  Also noticed several type-mismatch complaints, though
with many where one arg was a "void"-something, so those might not be
serious, if anything.

*curious*...

thanks,
-linda