Re: The Next Microsoft?

[Jon S Anthony <jsa@synquiry.com>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> 
> Mark Atwood <mra@pobox.com> writes:
> > Early C++, you are right. But once the committee started on it, they
> > could never say no to any seriously proposed feature, so now the language
> > is too big for the human brain.
> 
> What are these features that you are talking about? What features
> are present in Standard C++ that were absent in Early C++? The only
> thing that comes close that I can think of is the
> internationalization of stream I/O, and it was absolutely necessary
> to do this or there would have been no standard at all.

A few that come to mind (we are talking "early C++", say pre '90):

MI, Exceptions, Namespaces, and Templates.

I don't think the problem is that it is too big.  "Bigness" itself is
no bad thing in an industrial strength programming language and, if
properly executed, can even be a very good thing as it can make the
_writing_ of sophisticated programs _simpler_.  No, the major problems
with C++ revolve more around feature interactions and poorly thought
out binding time issues.  And this most likely comes from starting
with a very inappropriate substrate (good ol' C) for "accreting" new
constructs over it and nevertheless going ahead and making all those
accretions.


> > True, the STL model is nice and can fit in one competent brain. Pity
> > that it's realized in such a horrible language.
> 
> The STL model is a direct result of the desire to write high-level
> algorithms on fancy containers using the exact style that C
> programmers use to process arrays, namely with pointer arithmetic.

Stepenov's arguments for this have never made the least bit of sense.
The whole of STL (imo) is wrongheaded from top to bottom and the
template stuff in support shows an equal incompetence.


/Jon

-- 
Jon Anthony
Synquiry Technologies, Ltd. Belmont, MA 02478, 617.484.3383
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 Who'd notice?"  -- Londo Mollari