[Archive c 17.03.2008] Humour [Archive to 28.04.2012] - page 177
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Waiting for the market to open ? So are we !!!
EURUSD, H1
Waiting for the market to open ? So are we !!!
It's paired trading )))
http://gzone.org.ua/readclass/18/show/
A very funny interview involving Straustrup...
22 December 2009
HACKNET REVIEW 01/98
Interview by Bjarne Stroustrup on January 1st 1998
for Computer magazine.
© 1998, Computer
translation by Mike Bluesman
On January 1st 1998 Bjarne Stroustrup was interviewed by 'Computer' magazine. The editors actually expected him to talk about seven years of object-oriented programming using the language he developed.
By the end of the interview it turned out that the interviewer had extracted more information than expected and, naturally, the editors decided to trim the content 'for the benefit of the industry', but, as usually happens in such cases, there was a leak.
Here is the full and unedited transcript of the interview - it doesn't look like the usual planned Q&A.
You'll probably find it interesting.
Interviewer - hereinafter I.., Stroustrup - hereinafter C..
И. It's been a few years since you changed the world of software development. How do you feel when you look back now?
C. I was actually thinking about those days just before you arrived. Remember - everyone was writing their own versions of 'C', and the problem was that everyone was doing a damn fine job of it. Universities were bloody brilliant at teaching that language too. This led to a decline in competence. By 'competence' in this case I mean phenomenal. That's what created the problem.
И. The problem?
C. Yes, a problem. Remember when everybody was writing in Cobol?
И. Of course, I did that too.
C. Well, in the beginning these guys were like gods. They were paid a lot of money and treated like kings.
И. Yeah, those were the days.
С. Exactly. So what happened? IBM got sick of it and invested millions in training programmers until there were an awful lot of them.
И. That's how I got out of that field. Within a year the salary dropped so much that even as a journalist you could earn more...
С. Exactly. The same thing happened to programmers writing in 'C'.
И. Okay, so what is your point?
C. One day I was sitting in my office and I had a little idea about how to restore some balance. I wondered: what would happen if there was a programming language so obfuscated and so difficult to learn, that nobody would be able to fill the market with so many programmers writing in it? I already had some thoughts about that at the time. I mean, you know, X10 and X windows. It was the kind of graphical system that ran on Sun 3/60 at the time. It had all the ingredients I wanted - complex syntax, complicated to understand obscure functions, pseudo object-oriented structure. Even now nobody writes directly for X-windows. Motif is the only way if you want to keep your sanity.
И. Are you joking?
C. Not at all. There's another problem. Unix was written in 'C' - which meant that any programmer writing in 'C' could very easily become a systems programmer. Remember how much money most systems programmers used to make?
И. Yeah, I used to do that, too.
С. Now, this new language had to separate itself from Unix by hiding all the system calls that so nicely bind 'C' and Unix. Then the guys who only know DOS would have been able to make a decent living too.
И. I can't believe you said that...
С. It's been going on for quite a while, but it seems like most people have realized by now that C++ is a waste of time, but I must say it took longer to realize that than I expected.
И. Tell me more precisely, how did you do it?
C. It was just a joke, I never thought people would take this book seriously. Anyone, even with half a brain, can understand that object-oriented programming is intuitive, illogical and inefficient.
И. What?
С. And regarding 'reused code' - have you ever heard of a single company 'reusing' anything?
И. Well, I haven't actually, but...
С. There you go. Some have tried, by the way. There was this company from Oregon, Mentor Graphics, that got sick of trying to rewrite everything they could into C++ in '90 or '91. I really felt sorry for them, but at least people learned something from their mistakes.
И. Obviously they didn't succeed?
С. Nothing at all. But it would have been hard to explain the $30 million damage to the company's shareholders and, you have to hand it to them, they made it work in the end.
И. So they made it work after all? This proves that 'object-orientation' works.
C. Almost. The executable file was so huge that it took 5 minutes to load on an HP workstation with 128Mb of RAM. I thought this would be a stumbling block, but no one particularly cared. Sun and HP were very happy to sell abnormally powerful boxes with huge resources to run trivial programs on them. You know, when we at AT&T compiled our first C++ compiler for 'Hello World', I couldn't believe my eyes: the executable was 2.1Mb.
И. Well... But compilers have come a long way since then.
C. Do you think so? Try the same 'Hello World' example with the latest version of g++ - you get about half a megabyte. And apart from that there are many more examples from around the world. British Telecom almost had big problems, but luckily they decided in time to shut down the project and start all over again. And they were luckier than Australian Telecom. And now I hear Siemens is building some kind of dinosaur and are getting more and more worried about the size of what they're getting. Isn't it funny to watch this general misconception?
И. Yes, but C++ is a pretty normal language.
С. Do you believe in it so much? Have you ever tried to sit down and work on a project in C++? First of all, I've laid enough traps for only trivial projects to just work. Towards the end of the project it turns out that the same operators in different modules mean completely different things. Now try to connect all these modules together, especially if you have 100 of them. God, I sometimes can't help laughing when I hear about problems of different companies that can't make their modules communicate with each other.
И. I have to say I'm completely confused by everything you said. You said that you did it so that programmers would get better pay, but it doesn't make sense.
С. Not really. Everyone has his own choice. I didn't expect it to get so out of hand. But anyway, almost everything worked out for me. C++ is dying now, but programmers still get paid well - especially those who deal with all that nonsense - you understand that you can't use a large C++ program module effectively if you didn't write it yourself.
И. How's that?
С. Don't you understand? Remember typedef ?
И. Of course.
С. And now think how much time we have to dig through the headers just to find out, for example, that some 'RoofRaised' is a double-precision number. Imagine how much time it will take to find all the type definitions in a large project.
И. So you're saying that you've succeeded in everything you wanted to do...
C. Well, think of how long it takes to implement an average-sized 'C' project. It's about 6 months. Not long enough for a guy with a wife and kids to make a decent living. Try to implement the same project in C++, and what will you get? You'd need 1-2 years. Isn't that great? Beside that: They haven't taught 'C' at universities for so long that there are not so many people who program in 'C' anymore, especially those who know all about Unix programming. How many guys do you think think think they know what to do with 'malloc' after all these years of using 'new' and never checking the return code? Most C++ programmers don't throw out that return code at all. What happened to good old '-1' ? At least it was clear at once that you had an error somewhere without any 'throw', 'try' and 'catch'...
И. And still, does inheritance save a lot of time?
С. No, I told you... Have you noticed the difference between the project planning stages in 'C' and C++? For a C++ project this stage is three times longer. Time is spent on making sure that everything must be inherited and everything must not. But still there are errors. Who ever heard of memory leaks in a 'C' program? Finding those leaks is now a real chore. Most companies give up and release a product knowing a memory leak exists.
И. But there are various software tools...
С. Most of them are written in C++.
И. If we publish all that, you could be lynched, you know?
C. I doubt it. Like I said C++ is already a thing of the past. No company will now start a project in C++ without prior testing, and if there is testing, they'll realise it's a path to failure. If they don't, so be it for them. You know, I tried to convince Dennis Ritchie to rewrite Unix in C++.
И. Oh my God. And what did he say?
C. Luckily he has a good sense of humour. I think both he and Brian understood what I was doing at the time. He replied that he could help me write a C++ version of DOS if I wanted to.
И. And how was that? Did you want it?
С. I wrote DOS in C++. I can give you a demo. I have it running on Sparc 20 in another room. It just flies on four processors and only takes up 70 megabytes of disk space.
И. What does it look like on a PC ?
С. You are obviously joking. Have you seen Windows'95? I think of them as my greatest success.
И. You know, that idea about Unix++ got me thinking. After all, there could be a guy sitting somewhere who'd think of doing it...
С. But not after he reads this interview.
И. I am sorry, but it is unlikely that we will be able to publish even a part of this interview.
С. But this is the story of the century. I just wanted my fellow programmers to remember me for what I did for them. Do you know how programming in C++ is paid nowadays?
И. Last I heard real professionals earn $70-80 per hour.
С. Do you understand now? And I'm sure he deserves that money. Keeping track of all these traps I've built into C++ is not an easy job. And as I said before, every C++ programmer feels bound by the fact that he must use every element of the language in every project. In fact, this often annoys me too, even when it serves my purpose. But now that so much time has passed, I'm starting to like this language...
И. You mean you didn't like C++ before?
С. I hated it. It even looks clumsy, don't you agree? But when different books started coming out... That's when I saw the whole picture.
И. Wait, what about the links? Do you confirm that you've improved the 'C' signposts?
С. Hmm. I don't know myself. Actually I thought so. Then I once talked to a guy who'd been writing in C++ since the beginning. He said he couldn't remember if his variables were referenced or not, so he always used pointers.
И. I usually say 'thanks a lot for the interview' at this stage, but it's kind of out of place now.
С. Promise me you'll publish it.
И. I'll let you know, but I think I know what my editor has to say about that.
С. Who's going to believe it anyway? By the way, could you send me a copy of that recording?
И. I can do that.
Translator's note :
I do not program in C++. I am not a connoisseur of Russian language. So I apologize for possible translation mistakes.
special translation for Hacknet Review by Mike Bluesman, March 1998
------------------------------------------------
Good evening.
Just watched a favourite clip from the album WALL, Pink Floyd.
U
I've been wanting to download the music video for a long time - the final symphony of this movie (WALL)
Can someone give me a link if you have one ?
I've been wanting to download the cartoon clip - the final symphony of the film (WALL) for a long time.
Can anyone give me a link if you have one?
The Trial?
Yes, thank you, - found it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMHmDnfD6I
Not bad at all. "Bang, bang, ow, ow, ow..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qunMgCD-ww