7 ms·

One of my CS professors made the remark that C++ seemed like it had been designed by people who thought that there was a tax on keyboard symbols. So rather tha

One of my CS professors made the remark that C++ seemed like it had been designed by people who thought that there was a tax on keyboard symbols. So rather than using new symbols that were on a standard keyboard but not part of the language already, they just reused the old symbols either as is or in strange new combinations. When I look at Scala it gives me that same feeling. Additionally, they seem to come from the 'god kills a kitten every time I press a key' school of thought so everything looks really compressed and cramped. Granted it's not as bad as Perl or something you might see in an obfuscated C contest, but it seems a step away from Java in terms of readability. Which seems a shame to me. It is as though they said to themselves, "we will increase the utility, but something must be sacrificed". I just kind of wish they had added the extra power, but not at the expense of making it harder to read.

dkarl 16y ago
I don't see any symbols on my keyboard that weren't already used in C except @ and ` (backtick.) P.S. I forgot about $.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  Let's assume you're right. You also need to consider the composite symbols. Example: >> already has a meaning in C++ so instead of reusing the exact same combination why not invent a new symbol (made up of two or more symbols) for sending Strings to the output? E.g. I don't know, something that looks a bit more like the terminal prompt ?> or $> or even go wild and crazy $$ If you say "lol u nuub, operater overloading!" then I would reply if operator overloading is good, then having more operators defined at the language level and thus available for overloading is better, yes?
  - scott_s 16y ago
    The operators >> and << don't mean "send strings to output," they are stream operators that either put something into a stream (<<) or take something out of a stream (>>). They're actually a surprisingly intuitive notation because the arrows point in the direction of data movement (since the stream is always to the left). There aren't many other notations that can be as intuitive and bidirectional. The next obvious notation, -> and <-, are off limits because -> is already a legal operator on an object. There are many valid criticisms of C++. I don't think not using enough keys on the keyboard is one of them.

dkarl 16y ago

I don't see any symbols on my keyboard that weren't already used in C except @ and ` (backtick.) P.S. I forgot about $.

Stormbringer 16y ago
Let's assume you're right. You also need to consider the composite symbols. Example: >> already has a meaning in C++ so instead of reusing the exact same combination why not invent a new symbol (made up of two or more symbols) for sending Strings to the output? E.g. I don't know, something that looks a bit more like the terminal prompt ?> or $> or even go wild and crazy $$ If you say "lol u nuub, operater overloading!" then I would reply if operator overloading is good, then having more operators defined at the language level and thus available for overloading is better, yes?
- scott_s 16y ago
  The operators >> and << don't mean "send strings to output," they are stream operators that either put something into a stream (<<) or take something out of a stream (>>). They're actually a surprisingly intuitive notation because the arrows point in the direction of data movement (since the stream is always to the left). There aren't many other notations that can be as intuitive and bidirectional. The next obvious notation, -> and <-, are off limits because -> is already a legal operator on an object. There are many valid criticisms of C++. I don't think not using enough keys on the keyboard is one of them.