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

  • From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 19:16:13 -0500

Are you done?

*flurrishes hands*, I was enjoying the rant. No semantic value, but the 
syntactic garbage, so to speak, was entertaining.

Cary on.

oh, and yes, you so missed the point.

Take care,
Sina


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 7:13 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the 
language

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
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>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ty
>>
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