Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!orr
From: orr@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Fraser Orr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Should C++ follow C's footsteps?
Message-ID: <2490@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Feb 89 17:18:36 GMT
References: <4800051@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <8902@alice.UUCP> <2438@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <36818@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: orr@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Fraser Orr)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 46

Silly comment, with a serious point at the end.
In article <36818@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> john hall <hall@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>In article <2438@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> orr%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk (Fraser Orr) writes:
>I like the C syntax, including the "for" syntax.
>What I can't stand is Pascal syntax -> begin/end's drive me
>nuts.

Interesting, especially since the word "for" does not convey any
hint of itteration, where as "begin" clearly indicates that something
(a syntactic block) is about to begin. Are you really in favour of
having a meaningless set of keywords? (That is of course a tautological
question, since you've already said you like C :^)

Of course your going to tell me that {} are so much easier to type,
and so much easier to read. I propose that all keywords be eliminated
and replaced by stupid symbols ...

	#(i=0; i<MAX; i++) { $(a[i].val) { j++ ; % ; } ^ & ; } ;

A chocolate watch for the first person who can tell me what the above
does <^:

>My main attraction to C++ is that it has a C subset.  The  
>extentions are all very natural, and intuitively obvious to
>a good C programmer.

I guess I'm just a bad C programmer, it took me two readings of Stroustrup
to get an idea of what was going on, a fair bit more study to get a detailed
grip.

>I do agree that most people new to C++ write C programs in C++,
>but remember that OOP is a different way of THINKING about
>problems.  It takes a while to get used to.

Yup, this is surely an argument for changing the syntax completely, since
having the same syntax means you can "do it the old way" so you never get
round to properly exploiting the OO technique.

As someone pointed out by e-mail, I can go away and use a proper OO language,
but it does seems such a waste since the new bits in C++ I quite like, its
just the horrible historical hangovers from the chronic crutch of C, that get
bug me.

==Fraser Orr ( Dept C.S., Univ. Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK)
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