P
Praveen
I am pretty much curious about the authenticity of the following
article that I recieved from a friend of mine. It is an interview of
Bjarne Stroustrup in 1998.
I would appreciate some comments...
subsequently, the editor decided toarrived. Do you remember? Everyone was writing 'C' and, the trouble
was,
they were pretty damn good at it. Universities got pretty good at
teaching
it, too. They were turning out competent - I stress the word
'competent' -
graduates at a phenomenal rate. That's what caused the problem.this little scheme, which would redress the balance a little. I thought
'I
wonder what would happen, if there were a language so complicated, so
difficult to learn, that nobody would ever be able to swamp the market
with
programmers? Actually, I got some of the ideas from X10, you know, X
windows. That was such a bitch of a graphics system, that it only just
ran
on those Sun 3/60 things. They had all the ingredients for what I
wanted. A
really ridiculously complex syntax, obscure functions, and pseudo-OO
structure. Even now, nobody writes raw X-windows code. Motif is the
only way
to go if you want to retain your sanity.written in 'C', which meant that any 'C' programmer could very easily
become
a systems programmer. Remember what a mainframe systems programmer used
to
earn?hiding all the system calls that bound the two together so nicely. This
would enable guys who only knew about DOS to earn a decent living too.have figured out for themselves that C++ is a waste of time but, I must
say,
it's taken them a lot longer than I thought it would.would take the book seriously. Anyone with half a brain can see that
object-oriented programming is counter-intuitive, illogical and
inefficient.There was this Oregon company - Mentor Graphics, I think they were
called -
really caught a cold trying to rewrite everything in C++ in about '90
or
'91. I felt sorry for them really, but I thought people would learn
from
their mistakes.their major blunders, and explaining a $30 million loss to the
shareholders
would have been difficult. Give them their due, though, they made it
work in
the end.minutes to load, on an HP workstation, with 128MB of RAM. Then it ran
like
treacle. Actually, I thought this would be a major stumbling-block, and
I'd
get found out within a week, but nobody cared. Sun and HP were only too
glad
to sell enormously powerful boxes, with huge resources just to run
trivial
programs. You know, when we had our first C++ compiler, at AT&T, I
compiled
'Hello World', and couldn't believe the size of the executable. 2.1MBget much change out of half a megabyte. Also, there are several quite
recent
examples for you, from all over the world. British Telecom had a major
disaster on their hands but, luckily, managed to scrap the whole thing
and
start again. They were luckier than Australian Telecom. Now I hear that
Siemens is building a dinosaur, and getting more and more worried as
the
size of the hardware gets bigger, to accommodate the executables. Isn't
multiple inheritance a joy?trivial projects will work first time. Take operator overloading. At
the end
of the project, almost every module has it, usually, because guys feel
they
really should do it, as it was in their training course. The same
operator
then means something totally different in every module. Try pulling
that lot
together, when you have a hundred or so modules. And as for data
hiding.
God, I sometimes can't help laughing when I hear about the problems
companies have making their modules talk to each other. I think the
word
'synergistic' was specially invented to twist the knife in a project
manager's ribs.this. You say you did it to raise programmers' salaries? That's
obscene.to get so much out of hand. Anyway, I basically succeeded. C++ is dying
off
now, but programmers still get high salaries - especially those poor
devils
who have to maintain all this crap. You do realise, it's impossible to
maintain a large C++ software module if you didn't actually write it?only to find that 'RoofRaised' was a double precision number? Well,
imagine
how long it takes to find all the implicit typedefs in all the Classes
in a
major project.months. Not nearly long enough for a guy with a wife and kids to earn
enough
to have a decent standard of living. Take the same project, design it
in C++
and what do you get? I'll tell you. One to two years. Isn't that great?
All
that job security, just through one mistake of judgement. And another
thing.
The universities haven't been teaching 'C' for such a long time,
there's now
a shortage of decent 'C' programmers. Especially those who know
anything
about Unix systems programming. How many guys would know what to do
with
'malloc', when they've used 'new' all these years - and never bothered
to
check the return code. In fact, most C++ programmers throw away their
return
codes. Whatever happened to good ol' '-1'? At least you knew you had an
error, without bogging the thing down in all that 'throw' 'catch' 'try'
stuff.project plan, and a C++ project plan? The planning stage for a C++
project
is three times as long. Precisely to make sure that everything which
should
be inherited is, and what shouldn't isn't. Then, they still get it
wrong.
Whoever heard of memory leaks in a 'C' program? Now finding them is a
major
industry. Most companies give up, and send the product out, knowing it
leaks
like a sieve, simply to avoid the expense of tracking them all down.company in its right mind would start a C++ project without a pilot
trial.
That should convince them that it's the road to disaster. If not, they
deserve all they get. You know, I tried to convince Dennis Ritchie to
rewrite Unix in C++.and Brian figured out what I was doing, in the early days, but never
let on.
He said he'd help me write a C++ version of DOS, if I was interested.we're through. I have it running on a Sparc 20 in the computer room.
Goes
like a rocket on 4 CPU's, and only takes up 70 megs of disk.think of that as my biggest success. Nearly blew the game before I was
ready, though.remembered by my fellow programmers, for what I've done for them. You
know
how much a C++ guy can get these days?I put into C++ is no easy job. And, as I said before, every C++
programmer
feels bound by some mystic promise to use every damn element of the
language
on every project. Actually, that really annoys me sometimes, even
though it
serves my original purpose. I almost like the language after all this
time.had. Then, one day I was discussing this with a guy who'd written C++
from
the beginning. He said he could never remember whether his variables
were
referenced or dereferenced, so he always used pointers. He said the
little
asterisk always reminded him.
Regards,
Praveen.
article that I recieved from a friend of mine. It is an interview of
Bjarne Stroustrup in 1998.
I would appreciate some comments...
interview, the interviewer got more than he had bargained for and,
subsequently, the editor decided toarrived. Do you remember? Everyone was writing 'C' and, the trouble
was,
they were pretty damn good at it. Universities got pretty good at
teaching
it, too. They were turning out competent - I stress the word
'competent' -
graduates at a phenomenal rate. That's what caused the problem.this little scheme, which would redress the balance a little. I thought
'I
wonder what would happen, if there were a language so complicated, so
difficult to learn, that nobody would ever be able to swamp the market
with
programmers? Actually, I got some of the ideas from X10, you know, X
windows. That was such a bitch of a graphics system, that it only just
ran
on those Sun 3/60 things. They had all the ingredients for what I
wanted. A
really ridiculously complex syntax, obscure functions, and pseudo-OO
structure. Even now, nobody writes raw X-windows code. Motif is the
only way
to go if you want to retain your sanity.written in 'C', which meant that any 'C' programmer could very easily
become
a systems programmer. Remember what a mainframe systems programmer used
to
earn?hiding all the system calls that bound the two together so nicely. This
would enable guys who only knew about DOS to earn a decent living too.have figured out for themselves that C++ is a waste of time but, I must
say,
it's taken them a lot longer than I thought it would.would take the book seriously. Anyone with half a brain can see that
object-oriented programming is counter-intuitive, illogical and
inefficient.There was this Oregon company - Mentor Graphics, I think they were
called -
really caught a cold trying to rewrite everything in C++ in about '90
or
'91. I felt sorry for them really, but I thought people would learn
from
their mistakes.their major blunders, and explaining a $30 million loss to the
shareholders
would have been difficult. Give them their due, though, they made it
work in
the end.minutes to load, on an HP workstation, with 128MB of RAM. Then it ran
like
treacle. Actually, I thought this would be a major stumbling-block, and
I'd
get found out within a week, but nobody cared. Sun and HP were only too
glad
to sell enormously powerful boxes, with huge resources just to run
trivial
programs. You know, when we had our first C++ compiler, at AT&T, I
compiled
'Hello World', and couldn't believe the size of the executable. 2.1MBget much change out of half a megabyte. Also, there are several quite
recent
examples for you, from all over the world. British Telecom had a major
disaster on their hands but, luckily, managed to scrap the whole thing
and
start again. They were luckier than Australian Telecom. Now I hear that
Siemens is building a dinosaur, and getting more and more worried as
the
size of the hardware gets bigger, to accommodate the executables. Isn't
multiple inheritance a joy?trivial projects will work first time. Take operator overloading. At
the end
of the project, almost every module has it, usually, because guys feel
they
really should do it, as it was in their training course. The same
operator
then means something totally different in every module. Try pulling
that lot
together, when you have a hundred or so modules. And as for data
hiding.
God, I sometimes can't help laughing when I hear about the problems
companies have making their modules talk to each other. I think the
word
'synergistic' was specially invented to twist the knife in a project
manager's ribs.this. You say you did it to raise programmers' salaries? That's
obscene.to get so much out of hand. Anyway, I basically succeeded. C++ is dying
off
now, but programmers still get high salaries - especially those poor
devils
who have to maintain all this crap. You do realise, it's impossible to
maintain a large C++ software module if you didn't actually write it?only to find that 'RoofRaised' was a double precision number? Well,
imagine
how long it takes to find all the implicit typedefs in all the Classes
in a
major project.months. Not nearly long enough for a guy with a wife and kids to earn
enough
to have a decent standard of living. Take the same project, design it
in C++
and what do you get? I'll tell you. One to two years. Isn't that great?
All
that job security, just through one mistake of judgement. And another
thing.
The universities haven't been teaching 'C' for such a long time,
there's now
a shortage of decent 'C' programmers. Especially those who know
anything
about Unix systems programming. How many guys would know what to do
with
'malloc', when they've used 'new' all these years - and never bothered
to
check the return code. In fact, most C++ programmers throw away their
return
codes. Whatever happened to good ol' '-1'? At least you knew you had an
error, without bogging the thing down in all that 'throw' 'catch' 'try'
stuff.project plan, and a C++ project plan? The planning stage for a C++
project
is three times as long. Precisely to make sure that everything which
should
be inherited is, and what shouldn't isn't. Then, they still get it
wrong.
Whoever heard of memory leaks in a 'C' program? Now finding them is a
major
industry. Most companies give up, and send the product out, knowing it
leaks
like a sieve, simply to avoid the expense of tracking them all down.company in its right mind would start a C++ project without a pilot
trial.
That should convince them that it's the road to disaster. If not, they
deserve all they get. You know, I tried to convince Dennis Ritchie to
rewrite Unix in C++.and Brian figured out what I was doing, in the early days, but never
let on.
He said he'd help me write a C++ version of DOS, if I was interested.we're through. I have it running on a Sparc 20 in the computer room.
Goes
like a rocket on 4 CPU's, and only takes up 70 megs of disk.think of that as my biggest success. Nearly blew the game before I was
ready, though.remembered by my fellow programmers, for what I've done for them. You
know
how much a C++ guy can get these days?I put into C++ is no easy job. And, as I said before, every C++
programmer
feels bound by some mystic promise to use every damn element of the
language
on every project. Actually, that really annoys me sometimes, even
though it
serves my original purpose. I almost like the language after all this
time.had. Then, one day I was discussing this with a guy who'd written C++
from
the beginning. He said he could never remember whether his variables
were
referenced or dereferenced, so he always used pointers. He said the
little
asterisk always reminded him.
Regards,
Praveen.