Re: The Next Microsoft?

[Mark Atwood <mra@pobox.com>]

Hyman Rosen <hymie@prolifics.com> writes:
> Mark Atwood <mra@pobox.com> writes:
> > That is the right way to do it. In a slightly more free-form manner,
> > it's very similar to how workhorses like Perl, Python and C (*not* C++)
> > have been evolving.
> 
> Not C++? The initial form of the language is the work of a single person,
> Bjarne Stroustroup, who developed it incrementally, giving out versions
> to users and accepting feedback.

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.

Nobody uses C++, they only use either a preferred or a
in-house-mandated subset dialect.

> The enhancement of templates in C++ into their modern form was due to the
> desire of the standardization committee to adopt the Standard Template
> Library into the standard. This library was the work of Alexander Stepanov.

True, the STL model is nice and can fit in one competent brain. Pity
that it's realized in such a horrible language.

But all this is just a well pounded grease spot on the road, where
there used to be a dead horse.

-- 
Mark Atwood   | It is the hardest thing for intellectuals to understand, that
mra@pobox.com | just because they haven't thought of something, somebody else
              | might. <http://www.friesian.com/rifkin.htm>
http://www.pobox.com/~mra