>-----Original Message----- >From: Anna Hristova [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 2:38 PM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Sava Nikolov; Svetlin Grancharov; >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: FW: Staro, no klasika > > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Vladimir Panov [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >Sent: 14 Ноември 2001 17:32 >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Staro, no klasika > > >Chudya se dali da ne izfabrikuvam neshto podobno za Java... V neya ima >mnogo poveche material :-))) > > > > >On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup 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... > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: And as for 're-useable code' - when did you ever hear of a >company re-using its code? > >Interviewer: Well, never, actually, but... > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: You are out of touch, aren't you? Remember the typedef? > >Interviewer: Yes, of course. > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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... > >Stroustrup: Most of which were written in C++. > >Interviewer: If we publish this, you'll probably get lynched, you do >realise that? > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: Not after they read this interview. > >Interviewer: I'm sorry, but I don't see us being able to publish any of > >this. > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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? > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: 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. > >Stroustrup: Who'd believe it anyway? Although, can you send me a copy >of that tape? > >Interviewer: I can do that. > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= * PLEASE do not post offensive jokes * message size limit is 150 KB * List info and instructions are available at http://harbinger.sirma.bg/lists/jokes.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
