Re: Desirability of C++

["Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei@online.no>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> While C++ syntax can sometimes be abysmal, I am 100% convinced that the
> main reason for the lack of Ada's popularity is its Pascal-derived syntax.
> Even after many attempts, I still can't look at a chunk of Ada code without
> my eyes swimming from the mass of undifferentiated text. If the designers
> had gone with {/} instead of is/begin/end, this could have been a different
> world. (And yes, I know that the internationalists wouldn't hear of using
> curly braces back then.)

I don't agree at all.

I think that the standard library is the main problem. I stronly believe
that the designers have tried to encompass too many platforms. E.g. I
think text-io is suitable for reports only and we should have gotten
something more suitable for PC/Unix style programming.

I think a lot of the strings stuff is dinosaur stuff (probably very nice
for real time, but not wonderful for general computing stuff). The
impression is that there is too much copying going on. I think Borland
made the right decision on strings when they selected counted strings
for Turbo Pascal/Delphi even if they are limited to 255 characters or
less. And I think they made the right decision about how to handle
string assignment, compares, etc.

As of now everybody have to do their own stuff. That means misery until
someone creates something that everybody think is wonderful and starts
to use.

I think that the library was what made C. It was brilliant in its
simplicity. Everything fit nicely to what many people want to do
(especially those who write tools). It seems to have handled change
reasonably well.


Greetings,