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 19:27:19 -0500

Sure, or one could bother learning that pretty much every language for the past 
30 to 40 years, with some major outliers has the
same syntactic sugar and just focus on gaining a pretty good experience level 
and comfort level with their own skills as a
programmer, developer, and software engineer such that you can tackle any 
problem in any language that best fits.

I mentioned things about syntax, you fired off with claims of ignorance; hence, 
my response.  Feel free to respond to the idea, but
how about not insulting the person while you're at it?

Take care,
Sina


-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 7:22 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the 
language

I'm pretty sure I didn't miss the point. You decided to rant about how 
new features in languages are useless because they are syntactic sugar, 
and that instead of learning syntactic sugar, people should be learning 
concepts.

I told you I agreed with you about the concepts; however, at the lowest 
level you can't implement these concepts without some kind of syntactic 
sugar, and syntactic sugar always changes. You have to learn the sugar 
to be able to keep up in whatever field you are in. Knowing the concept 
is simply not enough. You also need to know how to implement the concept 
in your employer's choice of syntactic garbage.

On 3/9/2011 4:16 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
> 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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