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angelbob · 03-31-2003, 07:28 PM

Ah, here we go. You're representing me as though I were saying "C++ shouldn't exist." Do you remember, way back when, what this thread was about? Somebody asked for a language recommendation.

If I thought English was the right language to use, I wouldn't recommend English-plus-Swahili, even if everybody involved spoke both English and Swahili. Why not? Because some day, God forbid, somebody new might show up on the project, and making sure they're fluent in English-plus-Swahili is a lot harder than making sure they're fluent in English. As a culture Imperialist (yup, guilty as charged) I believe that English © is better than Swahili (single-dispatch OO done on top of pointers) so I feel that an unholy hybrid of the languages gains very little on top of English, and causes more problems than it solves.

I'm not saying people shouldn't speak whatever unholy hybrid they like in the privacy of their own homes. But if somebody asks me "C/English or a hybrid?" I'll immediately answer "C/English" without a qualm and without batting an eyebrow.

I *do* like OO for some things. It's just that what I think of as OO is very poorly represented by C++. LPC isn't all that much better but it cleans up most of the worst nastiness. Java does too, though less so.

Dylan's awfully nice. I'll never write a MUD in it, though, since there'd never be a second developer on the project.

C++? Nope. Too many of its "benefits" over C are things that I would never use personally, and that I've usually seen used badly by other people. Since I would never want to debug another developer's C++ code submissions, I say "C" not "C++".

Is the context clearer now?

03-31-2003, 07:28 PM	#37
angelbob Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Bay Area, CA, USA Posts: 39	Ah, here we go. You're representing me as though I were saying "C++ shouldn't exist." Do you remember, way back when, what this thread was about? Somebody asked for a language recommendation. If I thought English was the right language to use, I wouldn't recommend English-plus-Swahili, even if everybody involved spoke both English and Swahili. Why not? Because some day, God forbid, somebody new might show up on the project, and making sure they're fluent in English-plus-Swahili is a lot harder than making sure they're fluent in English. As a culture Imperialist (yup, guilty as charged) I believe that English © is better than Swahili (single-dispatch OO done on top of pointers) so I feel that an unholy hybrid of the languages gains very little on top of English, and causes more problems than it solves. I'm not saying people shouldn't speak whatever unholy hybrid they like in the privacy of their own homes. But if somebody asks me "C/English or a hybrid?" I'll immediately answer "C/English" without a qualm and without batting an eyebrow. I do like OO for some things. It's just that what I think of as OO is very poorly represented by C++. LPC isn't all that much better but it cleans up most of the worst nastiness. Java does too, though less so. Dylan's awfully nice. I'll never write a MUD in it, though, since there'd never be a second developer on the project. C++? Nope. Too many of its "benefits" over C are things that I would never use personally, and that I've usually seen used badly by other people. Since I would never want to debug another developer's C++ code submissions, I say "C" not "C++". Is the context clearer now?