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- Path: ra.nrl.navy.mil!usenet
- From: pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil (Richard Pitre)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
- Subject: Re: C/C++ knocks the crap out of Ada
- Date: 28 Feb 1996 16:25:59 GMT
- Organization: Naval Research Laboratory
- Message-ID: <4h1vmo$878@ra.nrl.navy.mil>
- References: <4gha7a$l7n@qualcomm.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: n5160d.nrl.navy.mil
-
- In article <4gha7a$l7n@qualcomm.com> nabbasi@qualcomm.com (Nasser Abbasi)
- writes:
- > In article <4gh5r8$i2@mailhub.scitec.com.au>, ramsesy@rd.scitec.com.au
- (Ramses Youhana) says:
- > >
- > >Richard A. O'Keefe (ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU) wrote:
- > >> <snip>
- > >> (3) Precisely because they are popular, C and C++ are used by a lot of
- > >> programmers who shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard without a helmet
- > >> and padded knees. There is a lot of extremely bad C and C++ code.
- > >> It is easy for a language to get a bad reputation when nearly every
- > >> book you see has dreadful code in it.
- > >> <snip>
- > >
- > >I agree. I would also include many engineers (and not just programmers).
- > >Far too many programmers and software engineers skip over the DESIGN process
- > >and jump straight into coding.
- > >
- >
- > Well, do not blame them too quickly. What else would you do if you
- > have to have the thing up and running 2 days from now? (that is
- > what the schedule says). If you don't get it out of the door by
- > thursday, someone else will and you'll lose some sale.
- >
- > No time to do much design is the most common answer to the question
- > of why there is no or little design done befor jumping to coding.
- >
- > It is a sad state of affair, but I bet you a whole dollar that it
- > is what happen in many places.
- >
- > Nasser
-
- I agree. My first C++ program that did anything significant was an
- organizational mess for exactly this reason. The class features of C++ were a
- big improvment over my self imposed C code management rituals. I use C/C++
- because its a comprehensive professional quality tool and I can get a
- competitively priced quality implementation of it. Competition in this case is
- a great thing. The popularity of C/C++, in my opinion, makes a huge practical
- difference.
-
- I do not think of C/C++ as the ideal language. I am forever respectful of the
- Pascal-like family of languages because of some outstanding experiences that I
- had using Modula 2. Incorporating linking specification with the language spec
- was an incredibly good thing(no C++ wunderment lectures please). Ever since
- then I always feel like I'm having sex without a prophylactic. Its certainly
- more fun but I've known much better protection.
-
- We are blowing our testiculars off when we argue about languages this way.
- Programmers need a variety of tools with different characteristics and which
- interconnect. Because of this public boolshite debate based primarily on
- ignorance and inexperience we end up marketing our own selves out of the tools
- that we really need and we end up with customers dictating implementation
- language based on nonsense.
-
- We need a my-language-is-better-than-yours news group for people whose lives
- aren't already consumed by using tools that aren't what they could be.
-
- richard
-