Ian Collins said:
I've read that a few times. And every time I do, I have to say "take it with
a grain of salt". Because he's "in the box" rather than outside of it. (No
offense Bjarne!). Perhaps only because "I don't know any better". But ya
never know until you try. It sounds to me it went something like this:
multi-million dollar capable implementors applauded it, but that left out
those who could not enter the market at that level. Is it necessarilly
complex or designed to be complex? Personally, I like simple and elegant
solutions. With it's implementation requirements, C++ is definitely a pile
driver in comparison. (Please remember though that I like C++ a lot. I may
be getting a bit long in the tooth though). I think C++ has evolved into
some kind of "end" instead of the "means" it should be/should have been.
for some good arguments. In my opinion, the inability to use the
standard library or any form of generic programming is a huge retrograde
step.
It kinda bothers me that there is only one. Seems stifling. I just wonder
what else could be (and even could have been) if all the eggs weren't in one
basket.
I'd say its the truth. Languages evolve for a reason.
Surely more than ONE reason. Was that a freudian?
But why bother? We have been there and moved on.
I don't think anyone "has been there" because at some point in the early
evolution, there could have been other roads to take (forks in the road!),
but the one that was chosen was the current one. So I'm curious about what's
down those other paths. And yes, I've read D&E, pretty much when it was
first published. And I agree with most of it. A lot came after that though.
I've used cfront
compilers, they were a good thing in their day, giving a better C. But
users wanted more, so the language grew to meet the demand, not just for
the sake of growing.
Well I'm not suggesting anyone go back to cfront and call it a day. I too
don't see any reason to make C an intermediate language between the C++ code
and the assembler/machine code. If I was a language implementer (pseudo
compiler developer), I think I'd want to play around with cfront though. I
guess I'm thinking (aside, now) about language development tools. Stroustrup
translated into C, which was good solution that allowed him to experiment
with his ideas. Is there something else now? Or could cfront be useful to
language designers/creators/experimentors? If so, maybe HP would like to
open source theirs?
John