5 ms·

I don't think he's saying the criticisms are invalid, but just that they are at the forefront of more people's minds because the respective language is more pre

by osrec 8y ago

I don't think he's saying the criticisms are invalid, but just that they are at the forefront of more people's minds because the respective language is more prevalent. Languages that are barely used also have their problems - they are just undiscovered or spoken about less.

gizmo 8y ago
If he wanted to make the really mundane point that people don't complain about things they don't use there would be absolutely no reason to bring C++ into it. He could just remark that nobody complains about the bad handling of the Model T anymore because nobody drives it. It's true but why is that relevant or at all interesting? Do we really believe this is the mundane observation Stroustrup is making? No. Stroustrup uses his snarky retort to deflect criticism. When C++ is criticized by (academic) language designers, his comment reads as "and yet people use my language and not yours". And that's pretty immature. Popular tools have to meet a high quality standard because every wart in the language affects millions of people.
- osrec 8y ago
  Perhaps we should reflect on why people do indeed use his language, warts 'n all? Are you suggesting C or Haskell are without their problems? What is your definition of a "good" language?
  - gizmo 8y ago
    Good languages are local maxima in the language design landscape. C is a good language. As is Python. And C#. There are many projects for which C or Python or C# are fine language choices. Other languages have great ideas in them, but the languages themselves are a mixed bag. Perl, Java, C++. Perl inspired Ruby. Java inspired C#. But we haven't seen a good successor to C++ yet, probably because building a systems language is much more difficult than building an interpreted/scripting language.
    - bitL 8y ago
      > good successor to C++ Maybe D, but outside Facebook nobody really uses it.

by osrec 8y ago

gizmo 8y ago

If he wanted to make the really mundane point that people don't complain about things they don't use there would be absolutely no reason to bring C++ into it. He could just remark that nobody complains about the bad handling of the Model T anymore because nobody drives it. It's true but why is that relevant or at all interesting? Do we really believe this is the mundane observation Stroustrup is making? No. Stroustrup uses his snarky retort to deflect criticism. When C++ is criticized by (academic) language designers, his comment reads as "and yet people use my language and not yours". And that's pretty immature. Popular tools have to meet a high quality standard because every wart in the language affects millions of people.

osrec 8y ago
Perhaps we should reflect on why people do indeed use his language, warts 'n all? Are you suggesting C or Haskell are without their problems? What is your definition of a "good" language?
- gizmo 8y ago
  Good languages are local maxima in the language design landscape. C is a good language. As is Python. And C#. There are many projects for which C or Python or C# are fine language choices. Other languages have great ideas in them, but the languages themselves are a mixed bag. Perl, Java, C++. Perl inspired Ruby. Java inspired C#. But we haven't seen a good successor to C++ yet, probably because building a systems language is much more difficult than building an interpreted/scripting language.
  - bitL 8y ago
    > good successor to C++ Maybe D, but outside Facebook nobody really uses it.