RE: refactoring when using CVS

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Tuesday, February 26, 2002 at 12:15:20 (-0600), Thornley, David wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: refactoring when using CVS
>
> No they aren't.
> 
> You cannot possibly have extremely well-informed opinions on
> languages you have never worked in.  You can have interesting
> opinions, correct opinions, or even useful opinions, but not
> extremely well-informed ones.  The *only* way to get an
> extremely well-informed opinion about a language is to work
> in it.

You're wrong.

But let's agree to disagree on what it takes to have an "extremely well
informed" opinion on a computer programming language.

>  Had I never had to do a term project in Common Lisp,
> I would have continued to have a woefully bad opinion of it.
> 
> Have you read Stroustrup's "Design and Evolution of C++"?

Yes, actually I have, plus of course his original book on the language,
a number of papers, both by him and other folks.  I've also attended a
number of conferences where he participated on panels discussing C++,
the most memorable being one here in Toronto in 1987 where he debated
R.C.Holt (with David Tilbrook helping from the floor) on the merits of
C++ vs other "better" OO languages.  Stroustrup was very nearly a
blithering mess at the end!  ;-)

I've also talked on-on-one with several members of the Bell Labs Unix
team about C++ (which isn't used within Research much any more :-).

I've also read quite a significant number of smaller C++ programs.

Amongst the many other related subjects I've studied over the years, I
have taken a particular interest in programming languages and the
history of programming languages.  I do have extremely well informed
opinions about many computer programming languages.  I'm well enough
informed about them to know their strengths and weaknesses, and I'm well
enough informed about them to know which I can read well enough to
comprehend, and which I can write well enough to be useful.  I won't
claim to be a C++ programmer (because I'm not), but I will state
unequivocally that I am extremely well informed about the language.
Know thine enemy.

Some of the better quips I've collected about C++:

"C++ is the anti-scheme!"
        -- me and/or John Macdonald

C++ is to C as Lung Cancer is to Lung
        -- Forwarded-by: address@hidden (Guy Harris)

C++ is like jamming a helicopter inside a Miata and expecting some
sort of improvement.
        -- Drew Olbrich

C++ : an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog
        -- unknown

Java, the best argument for Smalltalk since C++.
        -- unknown

Claiming Java is easier than C++ is like saying that K2 is shorter
than Everest.
        -- Larry O'Brien (editor, Software Development)

I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not
have C++ in mind.
        -- Alan Kay

-- 
                                                                Greg A. Woods

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