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- Path: solon.com!not-for-mail
- From: seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c,comp.object,comp.software-eng
- Subject: Re: Beware of "C" Hackers -- A rebuttal to Bertrand Meyer
- Date: 14 Mar 1996 15:36:15 -0600
- Organization: Usenet Fact Police (Undercover)
- Message-ID: <4ia3gf$drf@solutions.solon.com>
- References: <1995Jul3.034108.4193@rcmcon.com> <4i862r$1evq@saba.info.ucla.edu> <4i99if$8ve@solutions.solon.com> <4i9u0l$vru@saba.info.ucla.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: solutions.solon.com
-
- In article <4i9u0l$vru@saba.info.ucla.edu>,
- Jay Martin <jmartin@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
- >seebs@solutions.solon.com (Peter Seebach) writes:
- >Your jargon file is bullshit (obsolete). Comes from primitive times
- >when coding wizardry was cool. Anything with "hack" in it is now at
- >best ambiguous (can mean cracking,etc) and mostly negative.
-
- Sez you. So, if I post saying "beware of Idiots named Jay, and you point out
- (correctly) that you're not an idiot, does it improve things any for me to say
- "this is a primitive and obsolete reference to olden days when there were cool
- people named Jay. Any use of the name Jay is now at best ambiguous (can mean
- politicians, etc.) and mostly negative."? No, it doesn't. If you've misused
- a term, you should aplogize, and use a term that *actually* means what you
- want to say. If you're bothered by hack programmers, well, I don't blame you;
- I spend about 5 hours a week explaining mistakes in books they've written.
-
- >The
- >meaning of hacking and hackers in this discussion is "anti-software
- >engineering/ good programming practices". I wouldn't put "hack" on
- >resumes.
-
- "The meaning of frog in this discussion is a kind of rodent." I'm sorry, but
- You Can't Do That. Playing fast and loose with English is no better a
- practice than playing fast and loose with a programming language. If you
- want to communicate with people, it's best to use the *existing* meanings of
- words.
-
- >>And for good reason. The key point is that, if the C programmer were the
- >>one talking about design concepts, and the Eiffel programmer were talking
- >>about cool optimizations she learned for the implementation she used, you'd
- >>hire the C programmer.
-
- >Yup, but its probably really hard to find "hacker" Eiffel programmers.
-
- Statistically speaking, it's hard to find *any* Eiffel programmers. It is no
- coincidence that the majority of programmers of *any* sort today are using C
- at least some of the time; it's the most widespread language (although C++ may
- eclipse it.) Curiously, black lesbian Eiffel programmers are also rare, but I
- believe there are a fair number of lack lesbian C programmers. Does C
- encourage melanin and lesbianism?
-
- >Don't see the difference between "C Hacker culture" and "C Hacker philosophy".
-
- There isn't one. What you're missing is that this is not *ignorance*, it is
- *disagreement*. (Some of it. There are admittedly arbitrarily large numbers
- of ignorant programmers.)
-
- This is like abortion. It's not that people are somehow not understanding;
- they are *disagreeing*. Actually, a fair number of C programmers are
- hopelessly naive. Why? Because it's their first language. Ditto BASIC
- programmers. A programmer who learns in Eiffel first will be much more likely
- to act like a naive twit than someone who learned BASIC, Pascal, and C.
- Even thoughEeiffel is a "better" language.
-
- >No they can't, but good tools should give all the help they can.
- >Its this black/white macho "I don't need no stinking checking",
- >"nothing is completely safe, so forget safety" is a hallmark
- >of the "C Hacker culture".
-
- No, it's a straw man. I *love* checking. I just don't see it as necessary.
- I personally use two compilers, with different sets of warnings, and turn on
- every warning the compilers I use have. Always. The exceptions are programs
- that I *can't* do legally, and there's currently one of those in my
- collection, and it's there because the Sun standard library isn't.
-
- You're the one building dichotomies of cards. Most of the C programmers I
- know with any experience habitually use all of the checking and safety
- features they can. They just don't have the belief that this somehow affects
- software engineering. Checks and warnings find typos and mistakes, they do
- not find design flaws.
-
- As a software engineer, you should know that the real meat of software
- engineering is beyond the scope of any existing language to check for or
- enforce; thees checks and warings, though useful in environments populated by
- mortals with slipiing fingers, are unlikely to affect detect a fatal design
- flaw.
-
- If you show me a language that can detect a *design* flaw, I will probably
- consider this a big deal. As is, I consider "safer" languages a frill. They
- help. So do faster compilers, or better documentation. Only fools turn down
- tools like this, but on the other hand, only fools believe that tools like
- this have answered any of the interesting questions.
-
- -s
- --
- Peter Seebach - seebs@solon.com - Copyright 1996 Peter Seebach.
- C/Unix wizard -- C/Unix questions? Send mail for help. No, really!
- FUCK the communications decency act. Goddamned government. [literally.]
- The *other* C FAQ - http://www.solon.com/~seebs/c/c-iaq.html
-