From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. O'Keefe) Subject: Re: What is wrong with OO ? Date: 1997/01/20 Message-ID: <5bv37v$prv$1@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 211135570 references: <32D11FD3.41C6@wi.leidenuniv.nl> organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.object,comp.software-eng nntp-posting-user: ok Date: 1997-01-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: bs@research.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup) writes: >I think that if C++ was as hard to understand and use as some people claim, >it would have failed to become popular in the first place and would have >vanished under the continuous barrage of fair and unfair criticism - despite >its (eventual) popularity. Speaking as someone who bought the first C++ book to come out, the C++ that became popular in the first place is not the C++ that people discuss now. To start with, it didn't have multiple inheritance, templates, exceptions, or RTTI. It follows that claims about the difficulty of understanding about C++ *AS IT IS NOW* cannot fairly be founded on its acceptance *AT FIRST*, just as arguments about the difficulty or otherwise of learning or teaching Ada 95 cannot be directly founded on the acceptance or otherwise of Ada 83 (ditto with Fortran 90 and Fortran 66). >I have often found myself wondering if the C++ wouldn't have been much better >for all concered had there (just) been two dozen good C++ books instead of >the 400+ books that mostly fail to teach the basic principles and mostly >lead students and programmers astray. Here of course it is very important to separate out the books from the language. The marked prevalance of trash books about C++ says nothing about C++ except that it is popular. >Thanks for the advice. The furthest I go is to claim that unless C++ >had at least some of the virtues I claim for it, it would have died during >the early years where there were essentially no C++ marketing and alternatives >languages with marketing dollars behind them existed. Hmm. When I learned about C++ in the mid-80s, the only available alternatives _that I was aware of_ were some sort of Lisp (Common Lisp not then being available) with some sort of home brew Flavors lookalike (CLOS not then being available) or Smalltalk. Simula 67 _may_ have been available for VAX & Sun but if there were marketing dollars behind it they never managed to put a mention of it where I could see it. What _were_ the VAX, Sun, Apollo alternatives to C++ a decade ago? -- My tertiary education cost a quarter of a million in lost income (assuming close-to-minimum wage); why make students pay even more? Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/%7Eok; RMIT Comp.Sci.