Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!alice!bs
From: bs@alice.UUCP (Bjarne Stroustrup)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Is this legal?
Summary: philosophy
Message-ID: <11062@alice.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 90 16:12:16 GMT
References: <10164@odin.corp.sgi.com> <PCG.90Jul17114203@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 96



In article 8852 Piercarlo Grandi @ Coleg Prifysgol Cymru writes:

 > Let me repeat here my usual tirade about the difference in attitude
 > between European (algorithmic language) and USA (programming language)
 > ideas of the role of programs and languages:
 > 
 > 	Programs for Europeans are there to communicate the
 > 	implementation of an algorithm,	either to programmatic
 > 	(e.g. compilers, pretty printers, verifiers) or human (even
 > 	more important!) readers. As such it should be as clear and
 > 	unambiguous as possible, and as informative as it can be without
 > 	becoming hard to read because of verbosity.
 > 
 > 	The USA position is that programs are there to drive a
 > 	computer to perform a task, and as long as they "work", who
 > 	cares...

This kind of tirade is somewhere between unhelpful and dangerous. It is
a wild generalization that reinforces prejudices and thus allow people
(on BOTH sides of the `divide') to feel superior and avoid learning from
experience. Had the generalization been made about your favorite `minority
group' rather than the unprotected species of `American programmers' and
`European programmers' it would have been recognized as utter bad taste
and an inditement to further antisocial behaviour (and probably been
illegal under the paternalistic laws of the US and UK).

So please, please, cool it. Let's keep the discussions on comp.lang.c++
technical and civil.

Also: Apologies to Piercarlo for using his posting as an excuse to ride
one of my hobbyhorses.

As a European living and working in the US I have had many opportunities
to (suffer from and) pounce on American parochial attitudes about/against
Europeans and other aliens and as a person living in the US and visiting
various parts of Europe often I have had many opportunities (and often no
acceptable alternative than) to defend Americans and other foreigners
against nasty and unfair labeling by parochial Europeans. I assure you
that no side of the Atlantic (or the Pacific) have a monopoly on virtue,
parochialism, competence, or incompetence.

Back to programming languages:

	(I deliberately use `programming language' rather than `algorithmic
	language' here following what I consider common English Academic
	usage - in my case learned at Cambridge (UK). I also feel that
	`algorithmic languages' places an undue emphasis on the computational
	aspect of programs at the expense of structural aspects: We are
	after all considering the general issues in the context of a
	language that supports object-oriented programming. `Algorithmic
	languages' is appropriate for Algol and Fortran, but maybe less so
	for C++ and Smalltalk.)

I clearly think that Piercarlo's characterization of programming languages
is inappropriate. A programming language serves BOTH as a means of communication
between programmers and between programmers and machines. Forgetting one of
the two while concentrating on a specific task is easy, but I don't think
any serious programmer would argue that only one of the two are of importance
in general. Consequently we are talking about emphasis; not about absolutes.

If you forget the human to human communication aspect of programming you
can easily create a maintenance nightmare. Examples abound on both sides
of the Atlantic.

If you forget the human to computer communication aspect of programming
you can easily get a performance nightmare. Examples abound on both sides
of the Atlantic.

(Again:)
	So let us cut the US/Europe characterization:
	It is divisive and inaccurate.

Curiously enough, you can also get a maintenance nightmare from overemphasis
on `structure' and `readability' (especially by emphasis on minutely applied
detailed formalisms) and a performance nightmare from overemphasis on
performance (especially by emphasis on low-level performance at the expense
on overall structure).

There is no simple solution, no holy grail, no silver bullet, so let us cut
the preaching, posturing and labeling, and get on with the hard work of
trying to figure out more reasonable and more manageable ways of designing,
constructing, testing, tuning, documenting, and maintaining systems. It is
so much harder being constructive than simply to criticize.

Further, back to C++ (this is comp.lang.c++ after all): C++ is designed to
be both an effective medium for human to computer communication (that is
primarily the `C part') and an effective medium for human to human
communication (that is primarily the `++ part'). See the `Efficiency and
Structure' sections of the `Notes to the Reader' chapter of my (first) book.
Naturally, like every other language, C++ is not perfect, but at least some
of the tradeoffs in this particular area have proven successful over a wide
range of applications and programming cultures.

	- Bjarne Stroustrup