* Michael Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [Jun 24. 2000 08:36]:
> > C++ code is harder to mantain that C! Not to mention how compilcated it
> > is to understand.....
>
> C++ is generally harder to maintain if you've been steeped in the C school
> of thought. C++ is, generally, easier to maintain if you know and like OO;
> it provide features for encapsulating data and only using a published
> interface, which -can- make a large project easier to maintain. Languages
> such as C encourage you to manipulate data structures manually, leading to
> complications when data structures change (as they inevitably do, in large
> projects). This is a generality; one can encapsulate data in C (by passing
> around a data structure as if it were an object), and totally ignore C++'s
> encapsulation.
>
> On the other hand, some of C++ can be terribly complex. The rules for
> determining what overloaded function to use, or for automatically casting a
> data type, are so filled with nuances, exceptions, and rules to remember
> that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
>
>
> The moral of this email is, each language has its place, and most langauges
> out there are suited to doing just about everything a programmer would like.
> It's the gray matter wandering around that imposes restrictions on what a
> language can be used for. Some languages are probably ill-suited to some
> things for efficiency reasons (writing an OS in Tcl is probably not a good
> idea) but this is a discussion about maintainability, not so much
> efficiency.
>
> Blackbox does well being expressed in C++. This is not a commentary on C++,
> but a commentary on the programmers involved with blackbox, who have put
> thought and effort into making the code maintainable. Any program, written
> in any language, can be made maintainable or unmaintainable. It takes
> thought and effort to make things a pleasure to work with. Surprise
> surprise, programming is not simply knowing a language, but knowing how to
> express yourself in that language clearly and concisely.
Exactly!
> Hopefully this speech will ward off any flamage. I'll get off my soapbox
> now. :)
Flamewars with C on one side and C++ is *not* something we want here.
History has provided us with a lot of them, so we should not make
another one here.
/Mads Martin
--
Mads Martin J�rgensen
Stud. Scient. Dat/Chem
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
URL: http://mmj.dk
Legal PL/1 code: IF THEN THEN THEN = ELSE; ELSE ELSE = THEN
