Bjarne Stroustrup: “I Did It For You All…” - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: cgroen
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 08:55:04 am
content: Now this is funnyhttp://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/I_did_it_for_you_all(sorry if this has been posted before, I did not find a thread here when searching)

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 08:58:34 am
content: I understood that to be a bit of a hoax.

author: cgroen
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 08:59:56 am
content: Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on December 09, 2021, 08:58:34 amI would absolutely hope that too!

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 09:14:09 am
content: I would hope it be true and engineers wouldn't mind supporting fellow engineers like lawyers and politicians do

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 06:23:00 pm
content: I like this website. Pretty interesting and fun stuff.I actually read this recently, which I found hilarious:http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/soap/simpleAs to this interview - whereas the "alleged" Stroustrup makes actually a number of good points, I really doubt he did say that himself. Not only because I have never really heard him doubt his own work from a technical standpoint, but also because it's definitely not his style of speaking.

author: cfbsoftware
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 11:21:08 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 09, 2021, 06:23:00 pmIndeed - it is an excellent example of 'satire'. For more background on these humourous articles see the top-level introduction:http://harmful.cat-v.org/

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 11:35:56 pm
content: QuoteSteve Jobs, CEO of Next, said just the opposite

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2021, 11:37:09 pm
content: QuoteAcorn

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 01:29:36 am
content: Interestingly though, Stroustrup with C++ is defnitely one of the people who pushed this kind of OO to the world (if not the first?), the kind that is in fact now increasingly considered "harmful" by many.As Alan Kay said:Quotehttps://ivanovivan.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/alan-kay-quotes/The point is, OOP as C++ (and many other later languages) implemented it was mainly a way of structuring programs in a modular way, something that other languages had already solved (via modules) in a much more elegant, to the point and maintainable way. But the "OO" part of them? It has only very little to do with how Alan Kay defined OOP.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 01:41:31 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 10, 2021, 01:29:36 amI really dislike the byword "considered harmful", because anyone making claims or writing blogs about those kinds of things is in itself is harmful.OO in itself is not any more harmful than functional programming or procedural programming. Context really matters and it's a question of whether OO fits the particular problem domain you want to solve or not. For example, taking an OO centric approach to provide functionality to primitive types, or plain-old-data types is a brain dead solution. Conversely, if you have some kind of data aggregate that needs to be protected and mutated in a controlled fashion, OO perfectly fits the problem.tl;dr: OO is fine, right tool for the right job, et cetera.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 11:02:47 am
content: In legend, Delphi was the major oracle who was consulted.Back in the 2000s, Delphi was a dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and with the compiler there was also an integrated development environment (IDE) with a visual form and lots of training documentation. All sold with the commercial name "Delphi".But "Delphi" comes from TurboVision, also a Pascal OOP environment, this time designed for DOS. Five books were included with the TurboVision box, one of which was dedicated to OOP.Theory, practice, examples. Borland has thought a lot about their customers.But that's all over. Anyway.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 02:38:41 pm
content: hoax/bogus/BS!...https://www.networkworld.com/article/2222576/snopes-com-debunks-old-c----interview--hoax.htmlany programmers will come to their senses from experience about which technique is best. if you dont like or find its bogus about operator overloading, you are free not to use it in the future, and if its true, globally it will naturally extinct, but in reality, not so. we still opt whatever OOP features have to offer and freely skip what we dont like. if you really agree with that bogus interview, you can go back to Cobol/Fortran whatever linear programming style, as any modern languages such delphi/java/phyton etc are built based on OOP as their foundation behind the curtain.Quote from: best from the link aboveanyway its a proof that "free speech" will consist of both sensible and non sensible things. we just need to filter them out with brain.

author: cgroen
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 02:41:09 pm
content: Just to make it clear, I don't dislike C++ (at all). I started using it in the 90's, and occasionally still uses it (and maintains programs written in it) both on PC and embedded (ML)

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 02:52:09 pm
content: QuoteSnope's whole "debunking" is based on one argument: the same newspaper which withdrew the interview from publication, later claimed that the interview had never happened.Well, if I were a newspaper trying to discredit a leaked interview, I would probably say the sameSnope's research only adds to the credibility of this interview, but of course they spin it their way.

author: cfbsoftware
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2021, 10:06:21 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on December 10, 2021, 11:02:47 amQuotehttps://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2021, 06:58:55 pm
content: Quote from: cfbsoftware on December 10, 2021, 10:06:21 pmHow annoying is when people quote things in the wrong way! My post didn't say that Delphi is died, but rather that there is no more "educational" and "training" effort with the product!

author: cfbsoftware
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2021, 09:54:56 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on December 11, 2021, 06:58:55 pmApologies for the misunderstanding. That was most certainly not the way it read to me.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2021, 07:15:26 pm
content: Quote from: cfbsoftware on December 11, 2021, 09:54:56 pmIt did for me, but then I have 1.5 shelf-feet of Borland C++ manuals still. I suspect you need to have pulled a muscle carrying their compilers to have understood his drift

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2021, 07:36:32 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on December 12, 2021, 07:15:26 pm!!!51Kg of paper!!! ... includingTurboVisionandDelphifrom v1 to v7; when manuals were paper versions, and they included a lot of training and educational stuff.Nowadays, you buy something, you get a download link and an activation code by email.Nothing more included (not even stickers)

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2021, 07:43:28 pm
content: p.s.I also remember a special "Borland Turbo Pascal v7 Xmas edition", included was a beautiful coffee cup, and distributed alongside Borland Pascal 7 there was "Turbo Vision" on a "bonus" disk and two printed extra manuals.Xmas 1999. I found it under the tree, and I remember it was a very heavy and big parcel

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2021, 09:10:24 pm
content: You knew you'd bought something in those daysI splashed on ObjectVision thinking that would be quite cool, but pretty much uniquely for Borland it got canned and buried pretty quick. I think that was the first one that came with just a slim manual, setting a trend.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2021, 07:44:49 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 10, 2021, 01:29:36 amIts also the case that C++ is not and never was intended as an "object oriented" programming language. Maybe "C with classes" started that way I'm not sure, but since very early on C++ was a intended to be a multi-paradigm language capable of high performance. The support for OOP certainly got the most attention, but it is a lot more than that. It's more helpful to think of C++ as the language where any feature that can be added without causing performance issues for those who don't use it will be implemented. For better or worse of course.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2021, 06:15:46 pm
content: Oh, just ran into this gem. I've always found Bjarne Stroustrup certainly brillant, but a bit nuts. Just a personal opinion of course. But after reading this, which admittedly is now a bit old, you'll have a hard time convincing me he isn't - I mean, nuts.https://stroustrup.com/whitespace98.pdfThat is pure evil genius. Python maintainers should definitely take a hint!So yeah, look at what C++ missed.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2021, 06:57:20 pm
content: Damn, how can we stop this man from destroying the worldYou mentioned Python, it's bad enough already.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2021, 07:02:03 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 30, 2021, 06:15:46 pmNote the date of the referenced "AT&T Labs Technical Report no. 42, April 1,1998".This being said, I'm still not convinced if this is April fools or not, because the content is notthatdifferent from what C++ actually became. The problem with Bjarne Stroustrup is, youcan'tknow. It's entirely possible the whole C++ is just a piece of modern art, a psychological experiment, or pure trolling. Nobody knows if Bjarne Stroustrup ever was serious, or if he is laughing in his beard, watching the world go really serious with C++.Yet it is entirely possible to successfully use C++ to write large and even somewhat maintainable programs. But the human is amazing. Given enough time and motivation, one could make the man go to the Moon using the Brainfuck language entirely.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2021, 07:11:11 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on December 30, 2021, 07:02:03 pmYeah. OK, might have been an April fool's, but point is, the report is available on his official website.Quote from: Siwastaja on December 30, 2021, 07:02:03 pmUh sure. But "whitespace overloading", really?But yeah, I would really love to see how Python maintainers would react to this idea.Quote from: Siwastaja on December 30, 2021, 07:02:03 pmWell, if the paper was actually an April fool's, this is a problem and gets us back to the famous interview, which, after all, may have been real as well.Maybe the guy has a very subtle sense of humour - but if so, that is a problem, because indeed, we can never know.Laughing in his beard... maybe, but I'm not so sure though. Or the joke has been lasting for a very long time now.You can just watch this recent video. If this was all an experiment, then kudos:

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2021, 09:04:23 pm
content: Wait, did you fall for it or am I falling for some second order trolling now?Whitespace overloading is weird, but the idea about automatically splitting variable names was obviously too insane even by C++ standards