4 ms·

Love me some RAII. Also, why is C++ chock full of such opaque acronyms? RAII and SFINAE come to mind.

wololongong 12y ago
More: NRVO, Pimpl, SBRM, EBO, NVI, ODR, CRTP, STL, RTTI, TMP. I've been using C++ for the past year at work. It's an absolute nightmare to learn.
- jjuhl 12y ago
  A year? That's nothing. Personally I'd consider anyone with less than 5 years of professional C++ experience a newbie. It's a complex language, it takes years to learn it well.
- stinos 12y ago
  SBRM, EBO, NVI, ODR, TMP -> care to explain those? Anyway it does prove your point: have been using c++ way longer than you and these don't immediately ring a bell. Always more to learn! (or at least, always more super subtle details you'll only encounter once in a lifetime)
  - electricCoder 12y ago
    SBRM = Scope Bound Resource Management ( another name for RAII ) EBO = Empty Base Optimization NVI = Non-Virtual Interface ODR = One Definition Rule TMP = Template Meta Programming
    - stinos 12y ago
      Funny. I do know all those principles but had no idea there were common abbreviations.
EliRivers 12y ago
It's old, and it was created and sharpened by old people with Unix smudges on their fingers. This is not so much a good answer, as an excuse to indulge myself and listen to Stephenson for a moment. The file systems of Unix machines all have the same general structure. On your flimsy operating systems, you can create directories (folders) and give them names like Frodo or My Stuff and put them pretty much anywhere you like. But under Unix the highest level--the root--of the filesystem is always designated with the single character "/" and it always contains the same set of top-level directories: /usr /etc /var /bin /proc /boot /home /root /sbin /dev /lib /tmp and each of these directories typically has its own distinct structure of subdirectories. Note the obsessive use of abbreviations and avoidance of capital letters; this is a system invented by people to whom repetitive stress disorder is what black lung is to miners. Long names get worn down to three-letter nubbins, like stones smoothed by a river.
- fla 12y ago
  > Long names get worn down to three-letter nubbins, like stones smoothed by a river. Except when they don't ;)

More: NRVO, Pimpl, SBRM, EBO, NVI, ODR, CRTP, STL, RTTI, TMP. I've been using C++ for the past year at work. It's an absolute nightmare to learn.

jjuhl 12y ago
A year? That's nothing. Personally I'd consider anyone with less than 5 years of professional C++ experience a newbie. It's a complex language, it takes years to learn it well.
stinos 12y ago
SBRM, EBO, NVI, ODR, TMP -> care to explain those? Anyway it does prove your point: have been using c++ way longer than you and these don't immediately ring a bell. Always more to learn! (or at least, always more super subtle details you'll only encounter once in a lifetime)
- electricCoder 12y ago
  SBRM = Scope Bound Resource Management ( another name for RAII ) EBO = Empty Base Optimization NVI = Non-Virtual Interface ODR = One Definition Rule TMP = Template Meta Programming
  - stinos 12y ago
    Funny. I do know all those principles but had no idea there were common abbreviations.

EliRivers 12y ago

It's old, and it was created and sharpened by old people with Unix smudges on their fingers. This is not so much a good answer, as an excuse to indulge myself and listen to Stephenson for a moment. The file systems of Unix machines all have the same general structure. On your flimsy operating systems, you can create directories (folders) and give them names like Frodo or My Stuff and put them pretty much anywhere you like. But under Unix the highest level--the root--of the filesystem is always designated with the single character "/" and it always contains the same set of top-level directories: /usr /etc /var /bin /proc /boot /home /root /sbin /dev /lib /tmp and each of these directories typically has its own distinct structure of subdirectories. Note the obsessive use of abbreviations and avoidance of capital letters; this is a system invented by people to whom repetitive stress disorder is what black lung is to miners. Long names get worn down to three-letter nubbins, like stones smoothed by a river.

fla 12y ago
> Long names get worn down to three-letter nubbins, like stones smoothed by a river. Except when they don't ;)