C
cplusplus
How far is the stuff below true?
Even if it is not true you may comment on it.
TIA.
======================================================================
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 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 th inking 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 be tter..
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?
Intervie wer: 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 gu ys 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 in C++..
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
wh en 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
a lways
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.
=======================================================================
Even if it is not true you may comment on it.
TIA.
======================================================================
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 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 th inking 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 be tter..
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?
Intervie wer: 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 gu ys 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 in C++..
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
wh en 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
a lways
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.
=======================================================================
It is an ancient joke. Not a particularly good one, but it