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- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
- Path: sparky!uunet!mole-end!mat
- From: mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us
- Subject: Re: Newbie Wants Advice on C-Programming
- Message-ID: <1993Jan4.091953.29873@mole-end.matawan.nj.us>
- Organization: :
- References: <1992Dec24.172333.7339@grebyn.com> <1993Jan2.163028.8829@netcom.com> <4284@dozo.and.nl>
- Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 09:19:53 GMT
- Lines: 50
-
- In article <4284@dozo.and.nl>, jos@and.nl (Jos Horsmeier) writes:
- > In article <24538@alice.att.com> bs@alice.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup) writes:
-
- > |jimlynch@netcom.com (Jim Lynch @ Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)) wrote
- > |
- > | > >For C++, it is _The_C++_Programming_Language 2nd ed. by Stroustrup
- > | > No no no no no no no no no no no no. These books are _unreadible_ to
- > | > a beginner. ...
-
- [Bjarne:]
- > |It is worth remembering that `beginner' means different things in different
- > |contexts and what `unreadable' means depends critically on what kind of
- > |beginner we are talking about.
-
- > I think there's a bit more to leaning C++ than there is in learning C.
- > ... IMHO there are tree types of `beginners':
-
- > - First time programmers;
- > - Experienced programmers but still unaware of the OOD concepts;
- > - Experienced programmers aware of OOD concepts, but they don't know
- > anything about the C++ language.
-
- > I think that one has to be a beginner of the third kind to be able
- > to learn the C++ language successfully.
-
- I'll _still_ argue with this. The Structured world has had the concept
- of `informational clusters'; Ada has its packages; other languages and
- approaches have had steps, larger or smaller, towards ADT programming.
-
- C++ is _not_ an OOPL; it is a PL which supports ADT, OOP, and many other
- approaches. Moreover, it supports them in a unified way; with some
- practice in the ADT world, it is natural to step into the OO world.
-
- Certainly, some notion of ADT _or_ OO programming will help. But these
- don't require experience in languages that support them. Kernighan and
- Plauger write ``Choose a data representation that makes the program
- simple,'' and ``Let the data structure the program,'' and then give
- examples in PL/I and FORTRAN-66. Page-Jones, in _The Practical Guide
- to Structured Systems_, writes of Informational Clusters. And even
- Brooks, in _The Mythical Man-Month_, writes of surrounding data with
- access functions that abstract the data into the permissible
- operations on it.
-
- Perhaps what is needed is being a skilled programmer and a skilled
- program architect/designer.
- --
- (This man's opinions are his own.)
- From mole-end Mark Terribile
-
- mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us, Somewhere in Matawan, NJ
-