Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!ncar!ames!amdahl!pacbell!varian!kinetics!minshall
From: minshall@kinetics.UUCP (Greg Minshall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ 2.0 pricing (AT&T loses.)
Message-ID: <773@kinetics.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jul 89 05:45:30 GMT
References: <2510@yunexus.UUCP>
Organization: Kinetics, Inc., Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 41

I certainly don't want to provoke a large number of flames directed in
my direction, but...

It occurs to me that the overall community (the side of which I sit by)
will, in general, be better served by fewer versions of C++, each with
support by a reputable vendor.

The current situation, as I understand it, is that people get the sources
of C++ to either port to their own platform (no help for them) or to fix
bugs in the compiler and/or libraries.

I would argue that the cost (in person-power) of doing that level of
source debugging and maintaining probably overwhelms the price that
has been mentioned for source licenses (though in most of our organi-
zations we find it easier to find payroll dollars than P.O. dollars).

Fewer, vendor-supported, versions will actually increase the distribution
of C++, plus give us better odds that random C++ programs will be
portable across systems.

I would say that, for better or worse,  C++ is probably going to be the
"in" language of the 90's.  The price, performance, and robustness on
Sun's, IBM PC's, and Mac's for binary distributions will certainly affect
this.  So will the development of good user-interface building toolkits
affect the impact C++ has on the world of programming.  However,
the source cost won't.

The first widely used versions of 2.0 will probably come from 3rd party
houses; success will be reached, however, when Microsoft, Sun, Apple
(which, at least, has announced plans to do so), DEC, etc. (ie: systems
houses), and "known" compiler houses like Borland and Think/Symantec/whatever,
provide supported C++'s which are as easily obtainable as each of their
C compilers (which, in reality, is only a constraint for the Unix houses,
since they are the ones giving away C compilers today).

To make C++ something other than a toy of the priveleged - that seems to
me to be a goal worth shooting for.  It is interesting, is it not, that
that seems to be all of our goals, and yet the method is so controversial?

Greg Minshall				Kinetics/Excelan/Novell
minshall@kinetics.com			1-415-947-0998