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

  • From: "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:20:17 -0700

You've just told us programming languages are useless because they're syntactic sugar, now you call another language a "real language?" Might I remind you that Lisp is just syntactic sugar, and at the end of the day is going to do the same as something else? Not to mention your "c++ is to old," argument. I'm thinking it would be better for you to quit while you're ahead. You keep throwing up arguments, getting backed farther and farther into a corner, and as a result you resort to insults and then contradict your whole argument in one shot.

On 3/9/2011 11:40 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
Right, and the rest of the world has had access to this syntactic sugar you are 
so enamoured with for a decade or more. Well, unless
of course they are using a, *clears throat*, real programming language, like 
lisp, in which case they've had it for oh, 45 years or
more.

Have a nice week.

Take care,
Sina

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 7:49 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bjarne Stroustrup talks about c++ and upcoming features in the 
language

Are you kidding me? I fired off one claim (which one one sentence) of
you acting ignorant in my whole 4 paragraph response, and that is the
one thing you take out of it? And please, don't take messages on here
personally. I said that you were ignorant in the claim you made, not
that you as a person were ignorant. But that's besides the point.

You claimed that syntactic sugar was useless. Your original claim was
that the new features being added into C++ 0x were useless. Syntactic
sugar's purpose is to speed the development process. Take a look at
C++'s new "auto" keyword. You can significantly cut down on coding
iterators by making use of it. Also take a look at the new support for
initializer lists. That'll also cut down on required code. Take a look
at support for lambdas -- that cuts down on the need to write a function
somewhere else in your source cluttering up the whole project. This
sugar is by far not useless.

I never claimed that syntactic sugar was more important than learning
concepts. In fact, I said the opposite -- you can't implement something
in the language without first learning the concept. And you also can't
implement something in the language without first learning that's
language's "syntactic sugar". So, concepts and syntax go hand in hand in
order to create the implementation.

I tutor computer science and programming, so I know what you mean when
people need to learn concepts. Some students struggle to implement a
concept in the code simply because they don't understand the concept.
However, some students also struggle to implement a concept in the code
because the syntax of the code is what confuses them. Both go hand-in-hand.

On 3/9/2011 4:27 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
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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