Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!udel!princeton!phoenix!fine!levy
From: levy@fine.Princeton.EDU (Silvio Levy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ - ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES, FIELDS OF APPLICATION (Summary)
Message-ID: <7274@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 21 Mar 89 21:13:35 GMT
References: <1216@laura.UUCP>
Sender: news@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: levy@fine.UUCP (Silvio Levy)
Organization: Princeton University, Princeton NJ
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In article <1216@laura.UUCP> bause@exunido.UUCP (Falko Bause) writes:
> From Michael Tiemann <tiemann%lurch.stanford.edu@uunet.uucp>:
> =============================================================
> 
> Disadvantages:
> ...
> C++ uses a references, which are not very complicated to understand,
> but they are not taught in standard programming courses.  As a result,
> it usually takes the average programmer about 6 months to figure out
> on their own when and how to use references.

With all due respect to Michael, this is a gross exaggeration.  For one
thing, references are explained (though poorly) in Stroustrup.  For another,
after programming in C for a while one is *highly* motivated to find
alternatives to pointer passing, etc.  So at least in my case the
time it took to figure out references was more like a couple of days,
which is a far cry from 6 months (unless you count the time I
programmed in C before and wished C had something like references).

Silvio Levy