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From: coggins@retina.cs.unc.edu (Dr. James Coggins)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ too complex
Message-ID: <5150@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 7 Nov 88 23:59:11 GMT
References: <192@imspw6.UUCP> <1740@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: coggins@cs.unc.edu (Dr. James Coggins)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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In article <1740@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:
>
>C++ isn't so bad. The reason (I believe) that the C++ book is difficult
>for object-oriented beginners is because it gives you a lot of
>implementation details without properly explaining the concept behind
>OOP. (This is not a flame at the book, it's just that another book needs
>to be written for OOP novices.)
>

I think it is more accurate to say that most of the existing documents
on C++ have as their objective the authoritative and (reasonably)
complete description of the language and its operation but not really
how to USE the language (or how to do O-O design, either).  This came
up at the C++ conference and was a motivation for our series of
articles on Managing C++ Libraries - we are trying to provide some
nuts-and-bolts howtos that are missing from the official sources. 

Bjarne Stroustrup has (repeatedly!) made the point that the C++
environment begins with the language (which he and colleagues are
developing - CAREFULLY) but requires other elements, including
education, debugging tools, project management tools, quasi-standard
libraries, etc. Feel free to contribute whatever you can figure out.
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Dr. James M. Coggins          coggins@cs.unc.edu
Computer Science Department   "Make it in Massachusetts" - ad slogan
UNC-Chapel Hill               "I made it OUT of Massachusetts"
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3175                - my slogan
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