Re: OT: Language War (Re: "C" Manual)
Hi
Joyner's article is very old. Has he updated it recently?
I didn't care much for Joyner's article either, but I learned a
great deal about C++ from reading it.
If you want or need to deal with the hardware, then you should use a
language that permits this access. If not, then by what ever you
hold holy, choose a language that insulates you from the hardware.
You choose your advice by choosing your advisor. If you don't
believe me, consider asking a Priest about birth control.
Eiffel, Java, Ada fill this bill of a language that insulates from
the hardware.
--David
Listen folks, you choose your advice by choosing your advior. On
Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Jeffrey W. Baker wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Eric G. Miller wrote:
>
> > For a good explanation of how C++ took all the problematic issues of C and
> > added new sources of errors, see http://www.elj.com/cppcv3/.
>
> Hah! More like this:
>
> "For a vivid example of how much free time ivory tower academics have to
> weep and moan about languages other than their favorite, see
> http://www.elj.com/cppcv3/";
>
> I mean, really. I've read all three editions of this guy whining about
> C++ (and C) and I don't think I can take it any longer. "Be like me, use
> a language with imperceptible market penetration." I really think Mr.
> Joyner is my polar opposite. When I think of a computer, I think of an
> electronic device which will do such-and-such thing if you place value
> 0x37 at memory offset 0. When Ian Joyner looks at a computer, he wants to
> represent his model of the universe inside it. The computer and the human
> are fundametally different things. You'll expend an aweful lot of energy
> trying to represent human concepts in a computer. By contrast, it is very
> easy for a human to learn computer concepts.
>
> If you ask an Eiffel programmer how to get the value of a byte at a given
> offset in the computer's memory, they'll start with an explanation about
> why the programmer shouldn't concern himself with computer memory; memory
> is in the "how" domain. From there, they will launch a long lecture that
> probably won't answer the question but will result in something absurd
> like class ByteObserver (and its companion, class ByteObserverManager).
> A C programmer will just say *offset.
>
> Anyway, back to "A Critique of C++"...
>
> Mr. Joyner's treatise shouldn't be considered anything other than a
> finely-ground axe. Many of his specific criticisms start out "It is well
> known..." or "It hash been shown..." without reference to the place where
> it has been shown or the people to whom it is well known. In one place,
> he complains that C++ is not suited to concurrent processing (without
> reference to the tremendous amount of existing concurrent C++ software --
> Mozilla is a modern example), but fails to mention that, at the time of
> his writing, Eiffel lacked support for concurrency altogether!
>
> Someday, if I suddenly become a bored academic, I'll write a complete
> critique of Mr. Joyner's critique. At the current time, I am too busy
> writing actual software.
>
> -jwb
>
>
> --
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>
--David
David Teague, dbt@cs.wcu.edu
Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely,
useful, technically accurate, and friendly.
(I hope this is all of the above.)
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