🚀 go-pugleaf

Esa entrevista es m�s vieja que el c*g*r, y encima es mentira.


"renegade_gurl" <vivster81@hotmail.com> escribi� en el mensaje
news:ah7l1p$ehh$1@news.world-net.co.nz...
> The truth about 'C++' revealed
>
> (chuckle, computers, forwarded)
>
>
> On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne
>  Stroustup gave an interview to the IEEE's 'Computer' magazine.
>
> Naturally, the editors thought he would be giving a retrospective
> view of seven years of object-oriented design, using the language he
> created.
>
> By the end of the interview, the
>  Interviewer got more than he had bargained for and,
> subsequently, the editor decided to suppress its contents,
> 'for the good of the industry' but, as with many of
> these things, there was a leak.
>
> Here is a complete transcript of what was was said,unedited,
> and unrehearsed, so it isn't as neat as planned interviews.
>
> You will find it interesting...
>
> Interviewer: Well, it's been a few years since you changed the
> world of software design, how does it feel, looking back?
>
> Stroustrup: Actually, I was thinking about those days, just
> before you arrived. Do you remember? Everyone was writing 'C'
> and, the trouble was, they were pretty damn good at it. Universities
> got pretty good at teaching it, too. They were turning out competent -
> I stress the word 'competent' - graduates at a phenomenal rate.
> That's what caused the problem.
>
> Interviewer: problem?
>
> Stroustrup: Yes, problem. Remember when everyone wrote Cobol?
>
> Interviewer: Of course, I did too
>
> Stroustrup: Well, in the beginning, these guys were like demi-gods.
> Their salaries were high, and they were treated like royalty.
>
> Interviewer: Those were the days, eh?
>
> Stroustrup: Right. So what happened? IBM got sick of it, and
> invested millions in training programmers, till they were a dime a dozen.
>
> Interviewer: That's why I got out. Salaries dropped within a year,
> to the point where being a journalist actually paid better.
>
> Stroustrup: Exactly. Well, the same happened with 'C' programmers.
>
> Interviewer: I see, but what's the point?
>
> Stroustrup: Well, one day, when I was sitting in my office, I
> thought of this little scheme, which would redress the balance a
> little. I thought 'I wonder what would happen, if there were a language
> so complicated, so difficult to learn, that nobody would ever be able
> to swamp the market with programmers? Actually, I got some of the
> ideas from X10, you know, X windows. That was such a bitch of a graphics
> system, that it only just ran on those Sun 3/60 things. They had all
> the ingredients for what I wanted. A really ridiculously complex syntax,
> obscure functions, and pseudo-OO structure. Even now, nobody writes
> raw X-windows code. Motif is the only way to go if you want to
> retain your sanity.
>
> Interviewer: You're kidding...?
>
> Stroustrup: Not a bit of it. In fact, there was another problem. Unix
> was written in 'C', which meant that any 'C' programmer could very easily
> become a systems programmer. Remember what a mainframe systems
> programmer used to earn?
>
> Interviewer: You bet I do, that's what I used to do.
>
> Stroustrup: OK, so this new language had to divorce itself from Unix,
> by hiding all the system calls that bound the two together so nicely.
> This would enable guys who only knew about DOS to earn a decent living
too.
>
> Interviewer: I don't believe you said that...
>
> Stroustup: Well, it's been long enough, now, and I believe most
> people have figured out for themselves that C++ is a waste of time
> but, I must say, it's taken them a lot longer than I thought it would.
>
> Interviewer: So how exactly did you do it?
>
> Stroustup: It was only supposed to be a joke, I never thought people
> would take the book seriously. Anyone with half a brain can see that
> object-oriented programming is counter-intuitive, illogical and
> inefficient.
>
> Interviewer: What?
>
> Stroustup: And as for 're-useable code' - when did you ever hear of a
> company re-using its code?
>
> Interviewer: Well, never, actually, but...
>
> Stroustup: There you are then. Mind you, a few tried, in the early
> days. There was this Oregon company - Mentor Graphics, I think they
> were called - really caught a cold trying to rewrite everything in C++
> in about '90 or '91. I felt sorry for them really, but I thought
> people would learn from their mistakes.
>
> Interviewer: Obviously, they didn't?
>
> Stroustup: Not in the slightest. Trouble is, most companies hush-up
> all their major blunders, and explaining a $30 million loss to the
> shareholders would have been difficult. Give them their due, though,
> they made it work in the end.
>
> Interviewer: They did? Well, there you are then, it proves O-O works.
>
> Stroustup: Well, almost. The executable was so huge, it took five
> minutes to load, on an HP workstation, with 128MB of RAM. Then it ran
> like treacle. Actually, I thought this would be a major
> stumbling-block, and I'd get found out within a week, but nobody
> cared. Sun and HP were only too glad to sell enormously powerful
> boxes, with huge resources just to run trivial programs. You know,
> when we had our first C++ compiler, at AT&T, I compiled 'Hello World',
> and couldn't believe the size of the executable. 2.1MB
>
> Interviewer: What? Well, compilers have come a long way, since then.
>
> Stroustup: They have? Try it on the latest version of g++ - you won't
> get much change out of half a megabyte. Also, there are several quite
> recent examples for you, from all over the world. British Telecom had
> a major disaster on their hands but, luckily, managed to scrap the
> whole thing and start again. They were luckier than Australian
> Telecom. Now I hear that Siemens is building a dinosaur, and getting
> more and more worried as the size of the hardware gets bigger, to
> accommodate the executables. Isn't multiple inheritance a joy?
>
> Interviewer: Yes, but C++ is basically a sound language.
>
> Stroustup: You really believe that, don't you? Have you ever sat down
> and worked on a C++ project? Here's what happens: First, I've put in
> enough pitfalls to make sure that only the most trivial projects will
> work first time. Take operator overloading. At the end of the project,
> almost every module has it, usually, because guys feel they really
> should do it, as it was in their training course. The same operator
> then means something totally different in every module. Try pulling
> that lot together, when you have a hundred or so modules. And as for
> data hiding. God, I sometimes can't help laughing when I hear about
> the problems companies have making their modules talk to each other. I
> think the word 'synergistic' was specially invented to twist the knife
> in a project manager's ribs.
>
> Interviewer: I have to say, I'm beginning to be quite appalled at all
> this. You say you did it to raise programmers' salaries? That's
> obscene.
>
> Stroustup: Not really. Everyone has a choice. I didn't expect the
> thing to get so much out of hand. Anyway, I basically succeeded. C++
> is dying off now, but programmers still get high salaries - especially
> those poor devils who have to maintain all this crap. You do realise,
> it's impossible to maintain a large C++ software module if you didn't
> actually write it?
>
> Interviewer: How come?
>
> Stroustup: You are out of touch, aren't you? Remember the typedef?
>
> Interviewer: Yes, of course.
>
> Stroustup: Remember how long it took to grope through the header
> files only to find that 'RoofRaised' was a double precision number?
> Well, imagine how long it takes to find all the implicit typedefs in
> all the Classes in a major project.
>
> Interviewer: So how do you reckon you've succeeded?
>
> Stroustup: Remember the length of the average-sized 'C' project?
> About 6 months. Not nearly long enough for a guy with a wife and kids
> to earn enough to have a decent standard of living. Take the same
> project, design it in C++ and what do you get? I'll tell you. One to
> two years. Isn't that great? All that job security, just through one
> mistake of judgement. And another thing. The universities haven't been
> teaching 'C' for such a long time, there's now a shortage of decent
> 'C' programmers. Especially those who know anything about Unix systems
> programming. How many guys would know what to do with 'malloc', when
> they've used 'new' all these years - and never bothered to check the
> return code. In fact, most C++ programmers throw away their return
> codes. Whatever happened to good ol' '-1'? At least you knew you had
> an error, without bogging the thing down in all that 'throw' 'catch'
> 'try' stuff.
>
> Interviewer: But, surely, inheritance does save a lot of time?
>
> Stroustup: does it? Have you ever noticed the difference between a
> 'C' project plan, and a C++ project plan? The planning stage for a C++
> project is three times as long. Precisely to make sure that everything
> which should be inherited is, and what shouldn't isn't. Then, they
> still get it wrong. Whoever heard of memory leaks in a 'C' program?
> Now finding them is a major industry. Most companies give up, and send
> the product out, knowing it leaks like a sieve, simply to avoid the
> expense of tracking them all down.
>
> Interviewer: There are tools...
>
> Stroustup: Most of which were written in C++.
>
> Interviewer: If we publish this, you'll probably get lynched, you do
> realise that?
>
> Stroustup: I doubt it. As I said, C++ is way past its peak now, and
> no company in its right mind would start a C++ project without a pilot
> trial. That should convince them that it's the road to disaster. If
> not, they deserve all they get. You know, I tried to convince Dennis
> Ritchie to rewrite Unix inC++.
>
> Interviewer: Oh my God. What did he say?
>
> Stroustup: Well, luckily, he has a good sense of humor. I think both
> he and Brian figured out what I was doing, in the early days, but
> never let on. He said he'd help me write a C++ version of DOS, if I
> was interested.
>
> Interviewer: Were you?
>
> Stroustup: Actually, I did write DOS in C++, I'll give you a demo
> when we're through. I have it running on a Sparc 20 in the computer
> room. Goes like a rocket on 4 CPU's, and only takes up 70 megs of
> disk.
>
> Interviewer: What's it like on a PC?
>
> Stroustup: Now you're kidding. Haven't you ever seen Windows '95? I
> think of that as my biggest success. Nearly blew the game before I was
> ready, though.
>
> Interviewer: You know, that idea of a Unix++ has really got me
> thinking. Somewhere out there, there's a guy going to try it.
>
> Stroustup: Not after they read this interview.
>
> Interviewer: I'm sorry, but I don't see us being able to publish any
> of this.
>
> Stroustup: But it's the story of the century. I only want to be
> remembered by my fellow programmers, for what I've done for them. You
> know how much a C++ guy can get these days?
> Interviewer: Last I heard, a really top guy is worth $70 - $80 an
> hour.
>
> Stroustup: See? And I bet he earns it. Keeping track of all the
> gotchas I put into C++ is no easy job. And, as I said before, every
> C++ programmer feels bound by some mystic promise to use every damn
> element of the language on every project. Actually, that really annoys
> me sometimes, even though it serves my original purpose. I almost like
> the language after all this time.
>
> Interviewer: You mean you didn't before?
>
> Stroustup: Hated it. It even looks clumsy, don't you agree? But when
> the book royalties started to come in... well, you get the picture.
>
> Interviewer: Just a minute. What about references? You must admit, you
> improved on 'C' pointers.
>
> Stroustup: Hmm. I've always wondered about that. Originally, I
> thought I had. Then, one day I was discussing this with a guy who'd
> written C++ from the beginning. He said he could never remember
> whether his variables were referenced or dereferenced, so he always
> used pointers. He said the little asterisk always reminded him.
>
> Interviewer: Well, at this point, I usually say 'thank you very much'
> but it hardly seems adequate.
>
> Stroustup: Promise me you'll publish this. My conscience is getting
> the better of me these days.
>
> Interviewer: I'll let you know, but I think I know what my editor will
> say.
>
> Stroustup: Who'd believe it anyway? Although, can you send me a copy
> of that tape?
>
> Interviewer: I can do that.
>
> [Note - for the humor-impaired, not a true story. Making the rounds - ed.]
>
>
> --
> Visit me at http://www.pctronix.da.ru
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> "An eye for an eye will only leave the whole world blind" - Mahatma Gandhi
>
>