Adequacy front page
Stories Diaries Polls Users
Google

Web Adequacy.org
Home About Topics Rejects Abortions
This is an unofficial archive site only. It is no longer maintained. You can not post comments. You can not make an account. Your email will not be read. Please read this page or the footnote if you have questions.
 A Replacement for C++?

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
May 10, 2002
 Comments:
I was going to submit this to Usenet, but I wanted to sharp-eyed intellect of Adequacy.org readership to review this for any errors I may have committed.
diaries

More diaries by egg troll
Date
Peace Protestors
Idaho Cabin Adventure!
Women - The Myth of the Internet
Hello Gentlemen,

I'm a first year programming student at an Ivy League school and I've just finished my Visual Basic classes. This term I'll be moving onto C++. However I've noticed some issues with C++ that I'd like to discuss with the rest of the programming community. Please do not think of me as being technically ignorant. In addition to VB, I am very skilled at HTML programming, one of the most challenging languages out there!

C++ is based on a concept known as Object Oriented Programming. In this style of programming (also known as OOPS in the coding community) a programmer builds "objects" or "glasses" out of his code, and then manipulates these "glasses". Since I'm assuming that you, dear reader, are as skilled at programming as I am, I'll skip further explanation of these "glasses".

Please allow me to make a brief aside here and discuss the origins C++ for a moment. My research shows that this language is one of the oldest languages in existance, pre-dating even assembly! It was created in the early 70s when AT&T began looking for a new language to write BSD, its Unix Operation System (later on, other companies would "borrow" the BSD source code to build both Solaris and Linux!) Interestingly, the name C++ is a pun by the creator of the language. When the first beta was released, it was remarked that the language would be graded as a C+, because of how hideously complex and unwieldy it was. The extra plus was tacked on during a later release when some of these issues were fixed. The language would still be graded a C, but it was the highest C possible! Truly a clever name for this language.

Back to the topic on hand, I feel that C++ - despite its flaws - has been a very valuable tool to the world of computers. Unfortunately its starting to show its age, and I feel that it should be retired as COBOL, ADA and Smalltalk seem to have been. Recently I've become aquainted with another language that's quite recently been developed. Its one that promises to greatly simplify programming. This new language is called C.

Although syntactically borrowing a great deal from its predecessor C++, C greatly simplifies things (thus its name, which hints at its simpler nature by striping off the klunky double-pluses.) Its biggest strength is that it abandons an OOPS-style of programming. No more awkward "objects" or "glasses". Instead C uses what are called structs. Vaguely similiar to a C++ "glass", a struct does away with anachonisms like inheiritance, namespaces and the whole private/public/protected/friend access issues of its variables and routines. By freeing the programmer from the requirement to juggle all these issues, the coder can focus on implementing his algorithm and rapidly developing his application.

While C lacks the speed and robustness of C++, I think these are petty issues. Given the speed of modern computers, the relative sluggishness of C shouldn't be an issue. Robustness and stability will occur as C becomes more pervasive amongst the programming community and it becomes more fine-tuned. Eventually C should have stablity rivalling that of C++.

I'm hoping to see C adopted as the de facto standard of programming. Based on what I've learned of this language, the future seems very bright indeed for C! Eventually, many years from now, perhaps we'll even see an operating system coded in this langauage.

Thank you for your time. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Egg Troll


A few little nit picky things (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Slobodan Milosevic on Fri May 10th, 2002 at 06:00:16 PM PST
You forget an "of" somewhere in the third paragraph. You also misspelled "inheritance" somewhere along the way.

Aside from this, this piece was very well written. Perhaps Next time you could look into Java, it was developped after C (and C++) but seems to can be run on any architecture known to man, it is that versatile!


 
Irrelevant (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by nx01 on Fri May 10th, 2002 at 06:15:59 PM PST
I'm sorry to say that your article is irrelevant, since we have recently been enlightened by Microsoft.

The proper way is neither C or C++. The way, my friend, is C#.


"Every time I look at the X window system, it's so fucking stupid; and part of me feels responsible for the worst parts of it."
-- James Gosling

Yes (none / 0) (#20)
by Fon2d2 on Mon May 13th, 2002 at 08:29:11 AM PST
and like Java, the .Net architecture is designed to run on any platform.


 
take another look... (none / 0) (#4)
by detikon on Fri May 10th, 2002 at 09:43:06 PM PST
...at your research. First of it's OO and classes. C++ older than Assembly, the closest thing to machine code? AT&T had little to do with BSD. BSD (Berkeley Software/Systems Distribution) was developed at UCBerkerley. Unix was written in C. Those are just a few as I am tired now. There are already OSes written in C. Unix, Linux, BSD/OS, *BSD, and many more. C is good as it can allow for the code to easily be ported to other platforms.

I seriously hope this is one big troll and you're really not that stupid.




Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script.

I'm not satisfied. (5.00 / 2) (#5)
by Anonymous Reader on Fri May 10th, 2002 at 10:00:57 PM PST
I DEMAND a point-by-point rebuttal! Without a point-by-point rebuttle, you cannot possibly claim to have won the debate! Please, try harder.

--Anonymous Reader #24601


 
Alas and alack... (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by Kordau on Fri May 10th, 2002 at 11:55:32 PM PST
O' badly informed unfortunate. The guiles of the "popular press" have claimed yet another victory, it seems.

Classes indeed! Where is the relevance in that terminology, I ask you? The term "glasses" originated from yet another pun of the creator. When demonstrating the early prototype objects he'd created, an observer demanded his "seeing glasses". The creator thought this a quite jolly double play on words...

"I am C'ing some glasses" (referring to the building of objects)
"How can you C without glasses?" (retorative implying the fundamental nature of glasses)
"I need my glasses to C"
etc, etc.

Come, detikon, let us enlighten you further! Let us deliver you from the blinding constraints of this hypnotic modern folklore you have come to consider "reality"! Come... be free.



 
You're a jerk. (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous Reader on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 01:09:25 AM PST
Really. I was right. You're a real dick about things. I thought your post was somewhat intelligent until that last line. I seriously hope that this is one big troll would have been quite sufficient without the ad hominen attack.

I hate you.


 
Heh (3.00 / 2) (#10)
by Anonymous Reader on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 02:47:43 AM PST
C is good as it can allow for the code to easily be ported to other platforms.

This is surreal. Trolling the trolls, I guess. Good work, Deceptikon!


C and ports (none / 0) (#13)
by detikon on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 10:18:34 AM PST
Yeah that's why it became as popular as it did and the many governments endorsed it. The first Unix system was built using off the shelf parts.




Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script.

A State-endorsed programming language, eh? (none / 0) (#15)
by Anonymous Reader on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 09:19:20 PM PST
Obviously, then, C must stand for COMMUNISM! I'm glad that I've made VisualBasic my development language of choice.


Errm... (none / 0) (#16)
by The Mad Scientist on Sun May 12th, 2002 at 12:35:36 AM PST
...still better than Bloated, Awfully Slow Inane Crap. Especially the Visual brand. I don't even mention portability; try to run such abomination on any unixoid.

Seems Billy the Scum never managed to learn anything better from his Altair days. (I grew out of Basic before I was 15.)

A free hint on the side: Distrust anything that has "Visual", "Active" or "Smart" in its name.


riiiight. (none / 0) (#17)
by nathan on Sun May 12th, 2002 at 03:43:38 AM PST
We should distrust active, smart things, but we should trust COMMUNISM?!

It's all clear now. Oh yes, all too clear. Trust communism. There is no god but Marx and Lenin is His prophet...

Nathan
--
Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards.

 
Visual basic is bloated (none / 0) (#18)
by gNinja on Sun May 12th, 2002 at 04:07:11 AM PST
Visual basic is bloated because it is first transformed into C++ code and then into MC (machine code). It's really sad that Visual Basic is so bad because it has so much potential due to the fact it is based on an early version of LISP.

If Bill Gates was almost as smart like Steve Jobs he would skip the first steb and change Visual Basic code directly into MC. No one can be as smart as Steve Jobs, of course, but if someone were that smart, then he'd invent his own language called Objective C.

Objective C is like C++ combined with LISP but without the bloating (and redness :P) of C++.


 
erm... (none / 0) (#21)
by Anonymous Reader on Mon May 13th, 2002 at 10:41:15 PM PST
you should compare the bloated awfully slow inane visual brand of crap with the itsy bitsy resources required to get gnome to show up on your screen. MS compilers generate faster code than gnu's compilers. What are you going to do about it? Call complex software names?


 
Euch! (none / 0) (#19)
by budlite on Sun May 12th, 2002 at 04:12:18 AM PST
If you're going to use expensive RAD software, at least use Delphi!


 
spelling (none / 0) (#7)
by anti filidor on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 12:50:16 AM PST
I'm not sure whether you intended to leave your misspellings in there. If you did, then, good, leave them. If not, then you should run a spell checker through this thing. You'll pick up enough to justify the time it takes to do so.


 
Bloat and slowness (none / 0) (#9)
by gNinja on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 02:37:34 AM PST
I'm really more of a Mac user than a programmer, however I try to keep on the up and up so far as new technology is concerned.

If I was going to write a paper about C++ I would mention something about bloat. Bloating is the main reason why new software runs so slowly. (When you are listenning to MP3 songs and then computer slows down and the song gets "lagged" up that's probably because the software was written in C++.)

If programmers used LISP or ALGOR to program then we wouldn't have the problem with bloating, but unfortunately programmers are typically too lazy to learn new technology. :(

I'm not familliar with C, but it sounds a lot like LISP. I hope that it catches on because software these days is way too bloated.




 
Dearest Egg Troll, (none / 0) (#11)
by because it isnt on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 07:12:35 AM PST
thank you for this informative diary entry. I have but one question:

What does Yoshi's cum taste like?
adequacy.org -- because it isn't

I would assume (none / 0) (#12)
by nathan on Sat May 11th, 2002 at 09:18:58 AM PST
eggs.

PS - sorry for linking to a tripod add-spam site :(
--
Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards.

 
hm (none / 0) (#22)
by Anonymous Reader on Thu May 23rd, 2002 at 11:13:20 PM PST
...perl :)


 

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest ® 2001, 2002, 2003 Adequacy.org. The Adequacy.org name, logo, symbol, and taglines "News for Grown-Ups", "Most Controversial Site on the Internet", "Linux Zealot", and "He just loves Open Source Software", and the RGB color value: D7D7D7 are trademarks of Adequacy.org. No part of this site may be republished or reproduced in whatever form without prior written permission by Adequacy.org and, if and when applicable, prior written permission by the contributing author(s), artist(s), or user(s). Any inquiries are directed to legal@adequacy.org.