Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the language

  • From: Christopher <ccoale427@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:13:13 -0800

Are you serious? Yes, you are correct about the importance of learning concepts because after all, what good would a language be without concepts to implement them in? However, you are beyond ignorant in your statement that "every single language specific thing you learn is worth nothing more than the fleeting bits used to represent the ascii characters explaining it to you. It's nothing more than syntactic garbage..."


First of all, using your logic, all languages (including assembly languages) are nothing more than syntactic garbage because after all, everything that exists in that language is just something new to remember when we could just get right to the bottom of it and implement the machine code for every instruction set in existence. God forbid we use this syntactic garbage to implement anything.

Now, in reality, what is a language for? It's to make our lives easier. Simple as that. I use C++ over ASM because in all practicality, I don't have the patience to deal with the extra work that is required in ASM because it lacks (and for good reason) some of this so-called syntactic garbage. I use C++ because it is faster to develop practical software in than ASM. Using a higher level language with lots of this so-called syntactic sugar is simply there to allow you to develop more quickly and easily.

Now, as for your medicine example... medicine, chemistry, and the like all have this so-called syntactic garbage. Chemists (and God I hate it so damn much) need to know the electron configuration of all of the elements they work with (and this is also true for biochemists that develop medicine). Chemistry has its own syntactic sugar for writing out electron configurations. [Ne]3s1 is shorthand for 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s1. Chemists aren't going to say "Ok, electron number 1 is exactly at this position, electron number 2 is exactly at this position, etc., etc." They list them out using the syntactic sugar I showed you.

On 3/9/2011 3:54 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
Man, am I glad medicine sure doesn't work that way.

But hey, *smile*, I'm sure doctors would love to not learn anything new, *grin*.

This is my personal advice, so take it or leave it.

Every single language specific thing you learn is worth nothing more than the 
fleeting bits used to represent the ascii characters
explaining it to you. It is nothing more than syntactic garbage taking up space 
in your head.. this has been true for the past 60 to
70 years, and it will be true for the next 70 years.

That's why you should concentrate on learning concepts. Who cares if you can 
write a binary tree in C++, if you can't also write it,
after only glancing at a reference manual for 10 minutes, in 25 other languages.

languages come and go, but concepts hardly change.

So, you can either focus and obsess on the 2011 specific stuff, or the stuff 
that has been true ever since Charles Babbage made his
difference engine over a century ago.

And for you ladies out there, yes I'm aware that Ada Lovelace actually did all 
the hard work, *grin*.

Take care,
Sina






Take care,
Sina


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex Midence
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:48 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the 
language

Well, I'm glad the language has held still over the years.  I'm stil a
novice in this language and I'm glad I don't have to be so worried
about my book or tutorial containing obselete code as I would be for
Java.  You can still take a c++ book written in 2004 or 2005 or
something like that and use it to learn with.  Unless I'm mistaken,
you can't do this with c# or Java.  I tried looking at Java a few
months back and kept finding all these books that seemed to have a
bunch of things you had to change with subsequent versions of Java.
So, I for one am glad too much change hasn't come too quickly to it.

Alex M

On 3/9/11, Sina Bahram<sbahram@xxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
Fine, seriously belated, delayed, and not as useful as it would have been 10
years ago.

Take car,e
Sina


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Littlefield,
Tyler
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:39 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the
language

But it wasn't. This is a long time in coming, but it doesn't make it
useless.
On 3/9/2011 3:41 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
Wow, how many decades has it been?

Oh well, better later than never, or something, I'm sure.

Sorry, this is kind of useless.

This should have been done in 1999.

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex Midence
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 5:17 PM
To: programmingblind
Subject: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the
language

http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/C++0x%20-%20An%20Overview.html

Fascinating video from the man himself.  Interesting to hear his
voice.  For those who don't know, Bjarne Stroustrup is the man who
invented c++.  The language was originally called c with classes but
then, he changed the name to c++ because in c, the ++ means
incremental addition.

Enjoy,

Alex M
__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind

__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind



--

Thanks,
Ty

__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind

__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind


__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind

__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind


__________
View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind

Other related posts: