Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pa.dec.com!rust.zso.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!tkou02.enet.dec.com!jit345!diamond
From: diamond@jit345.swstokyo.dec.com (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: programming quality vs. language
Message-ID: <1991Apr10.040351.24299@tkou02.enet.dec.com>
Date: 10 Apr 91 04:03:51 GMT
References: <20176@alice.att.com>
Sender: usenet@tkou02.enet.dec.com (USENET News System)
Reply-To: diamond@jit345.enet@tkou02.enet.dec.com (Norman Diamond)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan , Tokyo
Lines: 36

In article <20176@alice.att.com> ark@alice.att.com (Andrew Koenig) writes:
ark>All other things being equal, I would expect the average quality
ark>of programs written in a language to increase along with the
ark>price of a typical compiler for that language.
ark>
ark>Consider: someone who wants to learn to program and doesn't even
ark>know enough to have an opinion about what language to use will probably
ark>start with a bias toward langauges for which cheap compilers are
ark>available.
ark>
ark>On the other end of the spectrum, languages for which the only available
ark>compilers are very expensive will probably be used mostly by people
ark>whose employers have paid for said compilers.
ark>
ark>In other words: cheap compilers are used by random hackers, expensive
ark>ones by professionals.  I would expect this to be true regardless
ark>of the merits of the languages themselves.

A number of professionals use g++ and other tools that (for some
purposes at least) are not expensive.

Some employers forbid their employees to do professional jobs.  The
difficulty of "paying for" reusable software has been another topic
in this newsgroup.  At times, I have been forbidden to make code
portable, have seen maintainers strip error-checking or multimorphic
statements (can't say polymorphic in these cases) out of my code, etc.

And on the other hand, expensive compilers have often prevented both
hackers and professionals from gaining expertise in a language; this
has also been a topic in this newsgroup and in others.

Once we get past the training grounds, the cost of compilers might not
have much effect on the average quality of programs.
--
Norman Diamond       diamond@tkov50.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.