E
Eric
I just read an old interview of Stroustrup here:
http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/news/alumni/win96/stroustrup.html
and found the following answer to "There's no next big thing then?",
very interesting:
<quote>
There are two theories for how C++ succeeded which are just plain
false. The first is that it succeeded simply because it was first. And
it wasn't. Simula was there. Smalltalk was there. Objective C was
there. Eiffel was there, and so was the Object-Oriented Pascal. It was
one of a group, and there were actually several that were before that.
It was not because I was first. Secondly, it is not because of the
marketing might of AT&T. We spent $3,000 popularizing it and marketing
for the first three years when it was commercially available.
</quote>
Since that is the case, then I am curious. How did C++ beat the
competition? (the word "beat" here refers to the relative
success/popularity of C++ to the other langages mentioned.)
The most obvious theory that comes to my mind, and one that Stroustrup
mentions in the interview, is that C++ had a larger prospective
audience in the form of the C community.
The second thing that comes to mind is efficiency, which is frequently
cited as an important advantage of C++. I choose to remain neutral
about whether C++ is faster/slower than the other languages mentioned,
in the hope of avoiding the deterioration of the discussion into one
that contains phrases like "but Moore's Law", "fast enough", "sure but
feature X is.." etc. Of greater interest is the relative performance
to Objective C since it is closer to C++ by virtue of its C heritage.
I also suspect that the feature set for C++ played a role, although I
don't have enough knowledge about the other languages to make an
accurate assessment.
Anybody else have any theories/ideas/facts?
Cheers,
Eric Mutta
http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/news/alumni/win96/stroustrup.html
and found the following answer to "There's no next big thing then?",
very interesting:
<quote>
There are two theories for how C++ succeeded which are just plain
false. The first is that it succeeded simply because it was first. And
it wasn't. Simula was there. Smalltalk was there. Objective C was
there. Eiffel was there, and so was the Object-Oriented Pascal. It was
one of a group, and there were actually several that were before that.
It was not because I was first. Secondly, it is not because of the
marketing might of AT&T. We spent $3,000 popularizing it and marketing
for the first three years when it was commercially available.
</quote>
Since that is the case, then I am curious. How did C++ beat the
competition? (the word "beat" here refers to the relative
success/popularity of C++ to the other langages mentioned.)
The most obvious theory that comes to my mind, and one that Stroustrup
mentions in the interview, is that C++ had a larger prospective
audience in the form of the C community.
The second thing that comes to mind is efficiency, which is frequently
cited as an important advantage of C++. I choose to remain neutral
about whether C++ is faster/slower than the other languages mentioned,
in the hope of avoiding the deterioration of the discussion into one
that contains phrases like "but Moore's Law", "fast enough", "sure but
feature X is.." etc. Of greater interest is the relative performance
to Objective C since it is closer to C++ by virtue of its C heritage.
I also suspect that the feature set for C++ played a role, although I
don't have enough knowledge about the other languages to make an
accurate assessment.
Anybody else have any theories/ideas/facts?
Cheers,
Eric Mutta