Bjarne Stroustrup Reflects On 25 Years of C++

eldavojohn writes "Today roughly marks C++'s first release 25 years ago when about six years of Bjarne Stroustrop's life came to fruition in the now pervasive replacement language for C. It achieved ISO standardization in 1998 and its creator regularly receives accolades. Wired's short interview contains some nice anecdotes including 'If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it' and 'I'll just note that I consider the idea of one language, one programming tool, as the one and only best tool for everyone and for every problem infantile. If someone claims to have the perfect language he is either a fool or a salesman or both.' There's some surprising revelations in here, too, as his portable computer runs Windows."

Olde Saying

[Anonymous Coward]

C++ is to C as Lung Cancer is to Lung.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Reflect?

[ciscoeng]

No, no. You're thinking of C#!

read with a fake Scots accent

[tverbeek]

Only 25 years? When I was in college, we learned C. No "plus plus", no "objective", no "sharp"... just "C".

Aye, as a matter of fact, I am feeling than a wee bit like Scotty in the TNG episode "Relics".

Re:For some critical views of the language...

[turgid]

My favourite quote: c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */

What I want to know is...

[Black Art]

Does Bjarne Stroustrop think of women as objects?

Re:Alan Kay said it best...

[russotto]

C++ seems like an awful stopgap solution that got out of control.

Yeah. And then they added templates.

Re:Programming Machismo

[gmurray]

There's that machismo again. Zip your pants back up, I don't have a ruler on me.

Re:Olde Saying

[pelotom]

I like this one (can't remember who said it): "C++ is an octopus made by nailing extra legs to a dog."

Re:the best.

[Xtifr]

...the slowest sorting algorithm

Bubble sort's not even close. The shuffle sort beats it hands down:

do {
    random_shuffle(container);
} while (!sorted(container));

The initial shuffle helps avoid good performance even when the data is pre-sorted. :)

Re:A tool for when you need to get the job done

[sjames]

But keep in mind the joke "Eat shit! A trillion flies can't be wrong!"

Re:Relative

[cheesybagel]

Depends on which assembly you are using. If it is X86 assembly, sure, it is baroque.

Re:What I want to know is...

[physburn]

but men fit even less, because function dick(), changes from private to public to not function, depending on the value of the blood alcohol variable.

Re:Olde Saying

[fbjon]

More like a big nuke missile, but with the warhead removed. It's still big, bulky, and not very nimble, but it goes exactly where you want it to go, and it doesn't blow everything up.

The Real Headline

[brsmith4]

Bjarne Stroustrup Reflects On 25 Years of C++: My bad

Re:What I want to know is...

[Bazouel]

Only if they don't have class ;)

Re:Reflect?

[Xiph]

Yes, but those are the Exception

Re:Objective C

[eric-x]

How is that superior to -1?