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This is the attitude that keeps us mired in subpar ideas like C, C++, Java, HTML, CSS, JS. "I'm a tough guy and tough guys use tools that make our lives hell!

This is the attitude that keeps us mired in subpar ideas like C, C++, Java, HTML, CSS, JS. "I'm a tough guy and tough guys use tools that make our lives hell! We're serious! We're engineers! Your language is just a toy because our managers want to keep us fungible!" What does an average "real engineer" C++ programmer have at their disposal? C++ has an ersatz type system (not algebraic and not connected to type theory) and an ersatz macro system (templates and preprocessing) and it offloads type signing onto the programmer (no help from an inferencer). It also lacks a garbage-collector because its followers are still afraid of non-existing "performance penalties". C++ has an ambiguous grammar that is context-dependent and requires infinite lookahead. Its creator is not any revolutionary thinker like Alan Kay, just some guy that wrote a language and become famous for writing that language. He also said that we hear a lot of complaints about C++ just because a lot of people use it, not because it's crap. But bullies like restalis rejoice in the fact that know-nothing managers keep choosing C++ because it's the industry bandwagon and you can count on universities to supply the market with a fresh load of programmers trained in mediocre tools time and again. You're a bandwagoner.

restalis 12y ago
"What does an average «real engineer» C++ programmer have at their disposal?" Ways to do the job. C++ is not perfect, I contest some of its design decisions (like having private class members by default, and having to explicitly (i.e. verbose) declare "public" at least some of them to make that given class usable), but I don't have to fight the language so much to get things done. For me the best job C++ does so far is by staying a tool. I don't want _BY_DEFAULT_ "something more", "something clever", or "something whatever" that adds more accidental complexity [1] which comes around when least expected and gets in my way! This being said, I admit that C++ suffers from feature creep like many other things do, but (as a consolation) it got here like this only after serious critique for each of the added feature and each feature had to pass serious filtering in order to "creep in". "managers keep choosing C++" Actually, I am the one choosing C++ for what I do, be it corporate related (and managed by managers) work or personal projects. I choose it for both low level and almost scripting-like tasks, although I used (and consider myself proficient in) other toy programming languages too. [1] http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf

restalis 12y ago

"What does an average «real engineer» C++ programmer have at their disposal?" Ways to do the job. C++ is not perfect, I contest some of its design decisions (like having private class members by default, and having to explicitly (i.e. verbose) declare "public" at least some of them to make that given class usable), but I don't have to fight the language so much to get things done. For me the best job C++ does so far is by staying a tool. I don't want _BY_DEFAULT_ "something more", "something clever", or "something whatever" that adds more accidental complexity [1] which comes around when least expected and gets in my way! This being said, I admit that C++ suffers from feature creep like many other things do, but (as a consolation) it got here like this only after serious critique for each of the added feature and each feature had to pass serious filtering in order to "creep in". "managers keep choosing C++" Actually, I am the one choosing C++ for what I do, be it corporate related (and managed by managers) work or personal projects. I choose it for both low level and almost scripting-like tasks, although I used (and consider myself proficient in) other toy programming languages too. [1] http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf