Subject: Re: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 12:23:38 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3213606216159676@naggum.net> * Thomas F. Burdick -> Espen Vestre | Got it, so you're saying you're ignorant of a language which is very | difficult to fully understand, and you're taking other people's word | on it that it's not that powerful or expressive. What he actually _said_ was that he took the pattern literature as evidence of its lack of strength and expressiveness. I happen to agree that the need for patterns shows a significant weakness in C++. | Since you seem to be in the business of taking people on their word, | maybe you should take me on mine and doubt the ability of the doubters | to fully use C++. I tend to believe that the patterns people he actually referred to are not doubters, but people who try to make using C++ easier for people. | Some of these "highly skilled" C++ people *would* fully understand CL if | they put the same amount of effort into it, but C++ takes a lot more. Hence my saying: Life is too long to be good at C++. But is a language really expressive if it takes a lifetime to become fluent in it? Is not "expressiveness" a function of the invested effort required to achieve something? /// -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- Carrying a Swiss Army pocket knife in Oslo, Norway, is a criminal offense.