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The article you link starts with: > 2013 Update: I was young and stupid when I wrote this.
by junke 10y ago
The article you link starts with:
> 2013 Update: I was young and stupid when I wrote this.
- tome 10y agoBut sadly doesn't explain any further ...
- catnaroek 10y agoWhich doesn't detract from the fact that it's easier to carefully add freedoms to a safe language, than it is to constrain an unsafe language until it becomes safe.
- coldtea 10y agoYes, but while easier it is also less useful -- since the unsafe language we're talking about has millions of users, billions of lines of codes, tons of libraries, huge support, hundreds of books, great tools, etc. The safe one, not so much. So making the unsafe language safer (even if not completely) can have much bigger impact and to far more people than touting some perfectly safe little language.
- catnaroek 10y ago> Yes, but while easier it is also less useful -- since the unsafe language we're talking about has millions of users, billions of lines of codes, tons of libraries, huge support, hundreds of books, great tools, etc. The safe one, not so much. Is this a plea for sticking to broken technologies 'cause social/environmental reasons?
- junke 10y agoI am not trying to refute your point. You selectively quoted a part of an article without acknowledging that the original author changed his mind later, which I found misleading. This is unrelated to C++/safety.
- lmm 10y agoI don't think there's anything wrong with that. Either the article has valid arguments or it doesn't - whether the author agrees with it today or not.
- junke 10y agoIt is true that arguments don't change and should be examined from their own qualities, but people are generally irrational and attach importance, implicitly, to meta-data. If I am an author and I put a note saying "this is not my point of view anymore", and you cherry-pick a quote like nothing changed, this is misleading because, willingly or not, this is an appeal to authority. Just as if someone was on your side saying "I approve what you say". The subtext is different if that person actually says "I once thought the same thing as you, but this was wrong and naive". I would expect a simple "take this blog post (note: author changed his mind since then) and replace...". Or maybe just write down your own version of the argument, with your own words.
- lmm 10y ago> this is misleading because, willingly or not, this is an appeal to authority. Interesting. To my mind it's the appeal to what the author thinks today that's the appeal to authority, because there's no explanation given for that, whereas the argument as written stands on its merits as an argument.