3 ms·

> C++ culture from Bjarne on down is still hideous. Arrogant, aggressive and generally nasty. This is the complete opposite of my experience. Most are among th

> C++ culture from Bjarne on down is still hideous. Arrogant, aggressive and generally nasty. This is the complete opposite of my experience. Most are among the most humble people I've met.

harry8 9y ago
"I understand what you are trying to say and I think that you are wrong." --Bjarne Stroustrup, to a chorus of razzes, jeers and laughter at a question in going native a few years back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-bdWKwXsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-bdWKwXsU about 1:09:30 But hey don't take my word for it, my reputation is nothing and I'm as anonymous as a wrong number whether I like it that way or not. How about Ken Thompson? His doesn't seem to be similar, if you like an argument from authority - and I think such argument has a place if not used exclusively. "I would try out the [C++] language [at AT&T] as it was being developed and make comments on it. It was part of the work atmosphere there. And you'd write something and then the next day it wouldn't work because the language changed. It was very unstable for a very long period of time. At some point, I said, no, no more. In an interview I said exactly that, that I didn't use it because it wouldn't stay still for two days in a row. When Stroustrup read the interview he came screaming into my room about how I was undermining him and what I said mattered and I said it was a bad language." Ken Thompson; cited in Seibel, Peter (2009). Coders At Work. p. 475. Alexandrescou openly criticises Alasdair Meredith at cpp con in a way that isn't really friendly or respectful. He also finishes all his talks with "Destroy!" as an open acknowledgement of the defensiveness he feels about the naked hostility that exists in the C++ world. I like his stuff and the bulk of his attitude, I hate the context and that it brings rubbish like this out of him. newsgroups (remember them?), c++faq - in which the most arrogant and hostile entries seem to correlate pretty closely with all the stuff widely acknowledged to be horrible (eg auto pointer, remember that?). Think about it, remember all the c++ places you've been. Which were really, actually, you know, friendly? Compare the general tenor of it all to the Python community, the Perl community, the Ruby. Hell even compare it to the way the python community and the Perl community interact with each other and it's vastly more pleasant. C++ is just straight up nasty, competitive, "No you're wrong because I'm smarter than you" "I've been anointed" garbage and it needs to be called as such. It really holds everything back. If I had to pick a word to describe it that word would be "macho." I think it's reasonable to suggest that if one has a point of view, make the argument, back it with your evidence, acknowledge that those who disagree are neither heretics nor idiots is the right thing on a number of levels.

> C++ culture from Bjarne on down is still hideous. Arrogant, aggressive and generally nasty. This is the complete opposite of my experience. Most are among the most humble people I've met.

harry8 9y ago

"I understand what you are trying to say and I think that you are wrong." --Bjarne Stroustrup, to a chorus of razzes, jeers and laughter at a question in going native a few years back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-bdWKwXsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-bdWKwXsU about 1:09:30 But hey don't take my word for it, my reputation is nothing and I'm as anonymous as a wrong number whether I like it that way or not. How about Ken Thompson? His doesn't seem to be similar, if you like an argument from authority - and I think such argument has a place if not used exclusively. "I would try out the [C++] language [at AT&T] as it was being developed and make comments on it. It was part of the work atmosphere there. And you'd write something and then the next day it wouldn't work because the language changed. It was very unstable for a very long period of time. At some point, I said, no, no more. In an interview I said exactly that, that I didn't use it because it wouldn't stay still for two days in a row. When Stroustrup read the interview he came screaming into my room about how I was undermining him and what I said mattered and I said it was a bad language." Ken Thompson; cited in Seibel, Peter (2009). Coders At Work. p. 475. Alexandrescou openly criticises Alasdair Meredith at cpp con in a way that isn't really friendly or respectful. He also finishes all his talks with "Destroy!" as an open acknowledgement of the defensiveness he feels about the naked hostility that exists in the C++ world. I like his stuff and the bulk of his attitude, I hate the context and that it brings rubbish like this out of him. newsgroups (remember them?), c++faq - in which the most arrogant and hostile entries seem to correlate pretty closely with all the stuff widely acknowledged to be horrible (eg auto pointer, remember that?). Think about it, remember all the c++ places you've been. Which were really, actually, you know, friendly? Compare the general tenor of it all to the Python community, the Perl community, the Ruby. Hell even compare it to the way the python community and the Perl community interact with each other and it's vastly more pleasant. C++ is just straight up nasty, competitive, "No you're wrong because I'm smarter than you" "I've been anointed" garbage and it needs to be called as such. It really holds everything back. If I had to pick a word to describe it that word would be "macho." I think it's reasonable to suggest that if one has a point of view, make the argument, back it with your evidence, acknowledge that those who disagree are neither heretics nor idiots is the right thing on a number of levels.