Xref: utzoo comp.object:3601 comp.lang.c++:13682
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!odi!dlw
From: dlw@odi.com (Dan Weinreb)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ and waitresses (summary, long)
Message-ID: <1991May27.042830.674@odi.com>
Date: 27 May 91 04:28:30 GMT
References: <2326@media03.UUCP>
Reply-To: dlw@odi.com
Organization: Object Design, Inc.
Lines: 25
In-Reply-To: pkr@media03.UUCP's message of 24 May 91 14:44:02 GMT

Sometimes there are two ways of doing something, and there are
tradeoffs between them.  Is this uniquely American?  I haven't done
any work overseas; perhaps I'm just provincial.  In your country, are
all sorts always done with quicksort, never with insertion sorts or
heapsorts?  Are all computer programs written in one language?  Do all
(or none) programmers always use languages with (or without) lots of
runtime checks?  It had never occurred to me before that there was
something American about the concept of choosing between engineering
alternatives based on tradeoffs.

I do agree that it is best when you can change your mind about which
choice to make, late in the game, with minimal alteration of your
program.  There are certainly areas in C++ where the language could be
better in this regard; but to have designed it to be better in this
regard might have meant compromising on one of the other goals of C++.
It's easy for you to complain about things you don't like; it's harder
to come up with an alternative proposal that meets the same criteria
that the design of C++ set out to meet.

By the way, it's easy for you to say the "Lisp just has lists and
atoms".  The baby Lisp that your learned about in school probably
really does just have lists and atoms.  Real Lisp dialects that are
used for serious work have quite a few data types, including arrays
and objects and several kinds of numbers and so on.  And this is
true of the European proposed standards, not just the American ones.