Subject: Re: C++ briar patch (Was: Object IDs are bad)
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1997/05/02
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.c++
Message-ID: <3071563530695899@naggum.no>


* Thant Tessman
| more energy has gone into developing C++'s tools than has gone into 
| developing tools for any of the far superior languages that exist.

* Andrew Koenig
| Which suggests that perhaps your opinion of what is superior is not
| universal.

the odd thing about energy and superiority is that more work is always
_necessary_ on the inferior product than on the superior.  we also observe
that much more is published on inferior products than on superior products,
such as on virus detection and protection for Microsoft "operating
systems", such as undocumented features in MS-DOS to make the machine
perform reasonably fast in the display subsystem of games, etc.  we find
that the more someone is dissatisfied with his working environment, the
more fuss they make, too.  the whole of USENET can be seen as evidence that
people do not write articles to express their agreement with each other.

it is rather curious that someone who _must_ know better argues that the
superiority of something and the energy poured into it are not inversely
related.  or are you saying that C++ is a superior language for the same
reason that MS-DOS is a superior operating system, Andrew?

that said, the draft subject to the second ISO CD registration vote for C++
contains remarkably good work in the standard template library.  it's a
pity all that energy is wasted on C++.  "what a magnificent waste!"

#\Erik
-- 
if we work harder, will obsolescence be farther ahead or closer?