Balog Pal said:
Maybe so, but there are ideas even more stupid. Like listening to that Linus
Torvalds offer to say, especially it it involves C++.
The major problem with Linus Torvalds is that he seems to talk (I assume
that he does so *deliberately* even though he probably knows better) about
the pre-standard C++ of the early 90's, as if all the alleged problems were
still relevant.
For example, his attitude towards the C++ standard library sounds a lot
like he was talking about pre-standard C++ compilers of the early 90's.
Before the language was officially standardized, it was indeed a risk to
use any non-C library which a given C++ compiler offered because there was
a high chance for the program to not to compile with another compiler.
Of course it took some time even after the language was officially
standardized for all major compilers to catch up and offer a full set
of standard libraries (eg. gcc 2.x was rather infamous for lacking many
relevant and useful standard library features, such as std::vector::at()).
However, the language was standardized over a decade ago, and those initial
problems are well in the past by now.
Another odd notion that he has is that he thinks that C, by its very
design, somehow naturally makes people write extremely efficient and
high-quality code, while C++ is the exact opposite: By its very design
it causes people to write extremely inefficient code.
You could make some arguments for the latter (especially when compared
to some higher-level languages), but the former is just incomprehensible.
I have seen quite a lot of horrible, horrible C code out there. So horrible
that it makes me want to rip my eyes out. That doesn't mean that writing
quality code is not possible in C. However, not only is his odd notion that
"C naturally leads to efficient and high-quality code" pure BS, but in my
experience C in fact easily induces horrible and inefficient code by its
very nature.
