Subject: Re: C++ briar patch (Was: Object IDs are bad) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/05/02 Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.c++ Message-ID: <3071563530695899@naggum.no> * Thant Tessman | more energy has gone into developing C++'s tools than has gone into | developing tools for any of the far superior languages that exist. * Andrew Koenig | Which suggests that perhaps your opinion of what is superior is not | universal. the odd thing about energy and superiority is that more work is always _necessary_ on the inferior product than on the superior. we also observe that much more is published on inferior products than on superior products, such as on virus detection and protection for Microsoft "operating systems", such as undocumented features in MS-DOS to make the machine perform reasonably fast in the display subsystem of games, etc. we find that the more someone is dissatisfied with his working environment, the more fuss they make, too. the whole of USENET can be seen as evidence that people do not write articles to express their agreement with each other. it is rather curious that someone who _must_ know better argues that the superiority of something and the energy poured into it are not inversely related. or are you saying that C++ is a superior language for the same reason that MS-DOS is a superior operating system, Andrew? that said, the draft subject to the second ISO CD registration vote for C++ contains remarkably good work in the standard template library. it's a pity all that energy is wasted on C++. "what a magnificent waste!" #\Erik -- if we work harder, will obsolescence be farther ahead or closer?