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Besides tptacek's reply, see also Yossi Kreinin's C++ FQA (Frequently Questioned Answers): http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/faq.html http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/faq.html

by nandemo 16y ago

Besides tptacek's reply, see also Yossi Kreinin's C++ FQA (Frequently Questioned Answers): http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/faq.html http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/faq.html Subjectively I don't feel HN as particularly anti-C++, it's more that people are younger and started programming in languages like Python and Ruby so they don't have a pro-C++ bias. If anything I feel that many people on HN are anti-Java. Personally I'm thankful for Java's existence because it managed to replace C++ in a lot of places.

_delirium 16y ago
The C++ FQA is pretty impressive in its detailed and thorough dislike for C++. I'm not sure if I know of anything else quite like it in that regard. The only thing that comes to mind as being close is the UNIX-HATERS Handbook.
- tptacek 16y ago
  The Unix Haters really liked Unix; the book was an act of love. Yossi clearly wants to stab C++ in the eyeball with a fork.
  - nandemo 16y ago
    Sure, but the original commenter wondered whether people who dislike C++ know C++ well. Yossi no doubt knows C++ pretty well.
  - zohebv 16y ago
    I take it that you haven't actually read the Unix Haters handbook. They clearly have no love for Unix. "Each graft of a new subsystem onto the underlying core has resulted in either rejection or graft vs. host disease with its concomitant proliferation of incapacitating scar tissue. The Unix networking model is a cacophonous Babel of Unreliability that quadrupled the size of Unix’s famed compact kernel. Its window system inherited the cryptic unfriendliness of its character-based interface, while at the same time realized new ways to bring fast computers to a crawl. Its new system administration tools take more time to use than they save. Its mailer makes the U.S. Postal Service look positively stellar."
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Yeah, you're right, now that I think about it, they were definitely all Win32 people. <groans>
      - zohebv 16y ago
        Seriously, can you give me any example of their love of Unix. They strongly preferred Lisp machines. Please don't make up random "facts". It is irritating to find false statements being upvoted just because noone bothers to double check them.
        calibraxis 16y ago
        Yes, the whole labor of hate argument was discussed in the foreword (written by Donald Norman): “Sure, we love your foreword,” they told me, but “The only truly irksome part is the ‘c’mon, you really love it.’ No. Really. We really do hate it. And don’t give me that ‘you deny it—y’see, that proves it’ stuff.” Norman remains suspicious, but the preface claims: "We have all experienced much more advanced, usable, and elegant systems than Unix ever was, or ever can be." Personally, I imagine for many of the participants, it was a labor of hate, not of love. We could chalk up any ambiguous love to Stockholm Syndrome.
        jff 16y ago
        Ritchie's anti-forward is the best: I have succumbed to the temptation you offered in your preface: I do write you off as envious malcontents and romantic keepers of memories. The systems you remember so fondly (TOPS-20, ITS, Multics, Lisp Machine, Cedar/Mesa, the Dorado) are not just out to pasture, they are fertilizing it from below. Your judgments are not keen, they are intoxicated by metaphor. In the Preface you suffer first from heat, lice, and malnourishment, then become prisoners in a Gulag. In Chapter 1 you are in turn infected by a virus, racked by drug addiction, and addled by puffiness of the genome. ... You claim to seek progress, but you succeed mainly in whining. Here is my metaphor: your book is a pudding stuffed with apposite observations, many well-conceived. Like excrement, it contains enough undigested nuggets of nutrition to sustain life for some. But it is not a tasty pie: it reeks too much of contempt and of envy.
- deleted 16y ago
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by nandemo 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

The C++ FQA is pretty impressive in its detailed and thorough dislike for C++. I'm not sure if I know of anything else quite like it in that regard. The only thing that comes to mind as being close is the UNIX-HATERS Handbook.

tptacek 16y ago
The Unix Haters really liked Unix; the book was an act of love. Yossi clearly wants to stab C++ in the eyeball with a fork.
- nandemo 16y ago
  Sure, but the original commenter wondered whether people who dislike C++ know C++ well. Yossi no doubt knows C++ pretty well.
- zohebv 16y ago
  I take it that you haven't actually read the Unix Haters handbook. They clearly have no love for Unix. "Each graft of a new subsystem onto the underlying core has resulted in either rejection or graft vs. host disease with its concomitant proliferation of incapacitating scar tissue. The Unix networking model is a cacophonous Babel of Unreliability that quadrupled the size of Unix’s famed compact kernel. Its window system inherited the cryptic unfriendliness of its character-based interface, while at the same time realized new ways to bring fast computers to a crawl. Its new system administration tools take more time to use than they save. Its mailer makes the U.S. Postal Service look positively stellar."
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Yeah, you're right, now that I think about it, they were definitely all Win32 people. <groans>
    - zohebv 16y ago
      Seriously, can you give me any example of their love of Unix. They strongly preferred Lisp machines. Please don't make up random "facts". It is irritating to find false statements being upvoted just because noone bothers to double check them.
      - calibraxis 16y ago
        Yes, the whole labor of hate argument was discussed in the foreword (written by Donald Norman): “Sure, we love your foreword,” they told me, but “The only truly irksome part is the ‘c’mon, you really love it.’ No. Really. We really do hate it. And don’t give me that ‘you deny it—y’see, that proves it’ stuff.” Norman remains suspicious, but the preface claims: "We have all experienced much more advanced, usable, and elegant systems than Unix ever was, or ever can be." Personally, I imagine for many of the participants, it was a labor of hate, not of love. We could chalk up any ambiguous love to Stockholm Syndrome.
        jff 16y ago
        Ritchie's anti-forward is the best: I have succumbed to the temptation you offered in your preface: I do write you off as envious malcontents and romantic keepers of memories. The systems you remember so fondly (TOPS-20, ITS, Multics, Lisp Machine, Cedar/Mesa, the Dorado) are not just out to pasture, they are fertilizing it from below. Your judgments are not keen, they are intoxicated by metaphor. In the Preface you suffer first from heat, lice, and malnourishment, then become prisoners in a Gulag. In Chapter 1 you are in turn infected by a virus, racked by drug addiction, and addled by puffiness of the genome. ... You claim to seek progress, but you succeed mainly in whining. Here is my metaphor: your book is a pudding stuffed with apposite observations, many well-conceived. Like excrement, it contains enough undigested nuggets of nutrition to sustain life for some. But it is not a tasty pie: it reeks too much of contempt and of envy.
deleted 16y ago
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