good one :)) lol... get more techie jokes from : http://misterharold.net/joker/src/jktech01.htm
On 4/29/05, Abinanthan.B <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > Bjarne Stroustrup (C++) Interview... C++ exposed...??? > > On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup gave an interview to the > IEEEs Computer magazine. > Naturally, the editors thought he would be giving a retrospective view of > seven years of object-oriented design, using the language he created. > > > > By the end of the interview, the interviewer got more than he had bargained > for and, subsequently, the editor decided to suppress its contents, for the > good of the industry but, as with many of these things, there was a leak. > Here is a complete transcript of what was was said, unedited, and > unrehearsed, so it isnt as neat as planned interviews. > > > > You will find it interesting... > > > > > > > > >Interviewer: Well, its been a few years since you changed the world of > software design, how does it feel, looking back? > > >Stroustrup: Actually, I was thinking about those > days, just before > >you arrived. Do you remember? Everyone was writing C > >and, the trouble was, they were pretty damn good at > it. > >Universities got pretty good at teaching it, too. > They were > >turning out competent - I stress the word competent - > >graduates at a phenomenal rate. Thats what caused the > >problem. > >Interviewer: Problem? > >Stroustrup: Yes, problem. Remember when everyone > wrote Cobol? > >Interviewer: Of course, I did too > >Stroustrup: Well, in the beginning, these guys were > like demi-gods. > >Their salaries were high, and they were treated like > royalty. > >Interviewer: Those were the days, eh? > >Stroustrup: Right. So what happened? IBM got sick of > it, and > >invested millions in training programmers, till they > were a dime a > >dozen. > >Interviewer: Thats why I got out. Salaries dropped > within a year, > >to the point where being a journalist actually paid > better. > >Stroustrup: Exactly. Well, the same happened with C > programmers. > >Interviewer: I see, but whats the point? > >Stroustrup: Well, one day, when I was sitting in my > office, I > >thought of this little scheme, which would redress > the > >balance a little. I thought I wonder what would > happen, if there > >were a language so complicated, so difficult to > learn, that nobody > >would ever be able to swamp the market with > >programmers? Actually, I got some of the ideas from > X10, > >you know, X windows. That was such graphics > >system, that it only just ran on those Sun 3/60 > things. > >They had all the ingredients for what I wanted. A > really > >ridiculously complex syntax, obscure functions, and > >pseudo-OO structure. Even now, nobody writes raw > X-windows code. > >Motif is the only way to go if you want to retain > >your sanity. > >Interviewer: Youre kidding...? > >Stroustrup: Not a bit of it. In fact, there was > another problem. > >Unix was written in C, which meant that any C > programmer could > >very easily become a systems programmer. Remember > >what a mainframe systems programmer used to earn? > >Interviewer: You bet I do, thats what I used to do. > >Stroustrup: OK, so this new language had to divorce > itself from > >Unix, by hiding all the system calls that bound the > two > >together so nicely. This would enable guys who only > knew > >about DOS to earn a decent living too. > >Interviewer: I dont believe you said that... > >Stroustrup: Well, its been long enough, now, and I > believe most > >people have figured out for themselves that C++ is a > waste of time > >but, I must say, its taken them a lot longer than I > thought it > >would. > >Interviewer: So how exactly did you do it? > >Stroustrup: It was only supposed to be a joke, I > never thought > >people would take the book seriously. Anyone with > half a > >brain can see that object-oriented programming is > >counter-intuitive, illogical and inefficient. > >Interviewer: What? > >Stroustrup: And as for re-useable code - when did you > ever hear > >of a company re-using its code? > >Interviewer: Well, never, actually, but... > >Stroustrup: There you are then. Mind you, a few > tried, in the > >early days. There was this Oregon company - Mentor > >Graphics, I think they were called - really caught a > cold > >trying to rewrite everything in C++ in about 90 or > 91. I felt > >sorry for them really, but I thought people would > learn from their > >mistakes. > >Interviewer: Obviously, they didnt? > >Stroustrup: Not in the slightest. Trouble is, most > companies > >hush-up all their major blunders, and explaining a > $30 > >million loss to the shareholders would have been > difficult. Give > >them their due, though, they made it work in the end. > >Interviewer: They did? Well, there you are then, it > proves O-O works. > >Stroustrup: Well, almost. The executable was so huge, > it took > >five minutes to load, on an HP workstation, with > 128MB of > >RAM. Then it ran like treacle. Actually, I thought > this > >would be a major stumbling-block, and Id get found > out > >within a week, but nobody cared. Sun and HP were only > too > >glad to sell enormously powerful boxes, with huge > resources just > >to run trivial programs. You know, when we had our > >first C++ compiler, at AT&T, I compiled Hello World, > and > >couldnt believe the size of the executable. 2.1MB > >Interviewer: What? Well, compilers have come a long > way, since then. > >Stroustrup: They have? Try it on the latest version > of g++ - you > >wont get much change out of half a megabyte. Also, > there > >are several quite recent examples for you, from all > over the > >world. British Telecom had a major disaster on their > hands but, > >luckily, managed to scrap the whole thing and start > >again. They were luckier than Australian Telecom. Now > I > >hear that Siemens is building a dinosaur, and getting > more and > >more worried as the size of the hardware gets bigger, > to > >accommodate the executables. Isnt multiple > inheritance a joy? > >Interviewer: Yes, but C++ is basically a sound > language. > >Stroustrup: You really believe that, dont you? Have > you ever sat > >down and worked on a C++ project? Heres what happens: > >First, Ive put in enough pitfalls to make sure that > only > >the most trivial projects will work first time. Take > >operator overloading. At the end of the project, > almost > >every module has it, usually, because guys feel they > really should > >do it, as it was in their training course. The same > operator then > >means something totally different in every > >module. Try pulling that lot together, when you have > a > >hundred or so modules. And as for data hiding. God, I > >sometimes cant help laughing when I hear about the > problems > >companies have making their modules talk to each > other. I > >think the word synergistic was specially invented to > twist the > >knife in a project managers ribs. > >Interviewer: I have to say, Im beginning to be quite > appalled at > >all this. You say you did it to raise programmers > >salaries? Thats obscene. > >Stroustrup: Not really. Everyone has a choice. I > didnt expect > >the thing to get so much out of hand. Anyway, I > basically > >succeeded. C++ is dying off now, but programmers > still get high > >salaries - especially those poor devils who have to > >maintain all this crap. You do realise, its > impossible to > >maintain a large C++ software module if you didnt > actually write > >it? > >Interviewer: How come? > >Stroustrup: You are out of touch, arent you? Remember > the typedef? > >Interviewer: Yes, of course. > >Stroustrup: Remember how long it took to grope > through the header > >files only to find that RoofRaised was a double > precision > >number? Well, imagine how long it takes to find all > the > >implicit typedefs in all the Classes in a major > project. > >Interviewer: So how do you reckon youve succeeded? > >Stroustrup: Remember the length of the average-sized > C project? > >About 6 months. Not nearly long enough for a guy with > a > >wife and kids to earn enough to have a decent > standard of > >living. Take the same project, design it in C++ and > what do you > >get? Ill tell you. One to two years. Isnt that > >great? All that job security, just through one > mistake of > >judgement. And another thing. The universities havent > >been teaching C for such a long time, theres now a > >shortage of decent C programmers. Especially those > who > >know anything about Unix systems programming. How > many guys would > >know what to do with malloc, when theyve used new all > these > >years - and never bothered to check the return > >code. In fact, most C++ programmers throw away their > return codes. > >Whatever happened to good ol -1? At least you > >knew you had an error, without bogging the thing down > in all that > >throw catch try stuff. > >Interviewer: But, surely, inheritance does save a lot > of time? > >Stroustrup: Does it? Have you ever noticed the > difference between > >a C project plan, and a C++ project plan? The > planning > >stage for a C++ project is three times as long. > Precisely > >to make sure that everything which should be > inherited is, and > >what shouldnt isnt. Then, they still get it wrong. > >Whoever heard of memory leaks in a C program? Now > finding them > >is a major industry. Most companies give up, and send > the product > >out, knowing it leaks like a sieve, simply to > >avoid the expense of tracking them all down. > >Interviewer: There are tools... > >Stroustrup: Most of which were written in C++. > >Interviewer: If we publish this, youll probably get > lynched, you > >do realise that? > >Stroustrup: I doubt it. As I said, C++ is way past > its peak now, > >and no company in its right mind would start a C++ > project without > >a pilot trial. That should convince them that its the > road to > >disaster. If not, they deserve all they get. You > know, I tried to > >convince Dennis Ritchie to rewrite Unix in C++. > >Interviewer: Oh my God. What did he say? > >Stroustrup: Well, luckily, he has a good sense of > humor. I think > >both he and Brian figured out what I was doing, in > the early days, > >but never let on. He said hed help me write a C++ > >version of DOS, if I was interested. > >Interviewer: Were you? > >Stroustrup: Actually, I did write DOS in C++, Ill > give you a demo > >when were through. I have it running on a Sparc 20 in > the > >computer room. Goes like a rocket on 4 CPUs, and only > >takes up 70 megs of disk. > >Interviewer: Whats it like on a PC? > >Stroustrup: Now youre kidding. Havent you ever seen > Windows 95? > >I think of that as my biggest success. Nearly blew > the game before > >I was ready, though. > >Interviewer: You know, that idea of a Unix++ has > really got me > >thinking. Somewhere out there, theres a guy going to > try it. > >Stroustrup: Not after they read this interview. > >Interviewer: Im sorry, but I dont see us being able > to publish > >any of this. > >Stroustrup: But its the story of the century. I only > want to be > >remembered by my fellow programmers, for what Ive > done for them. > >You know how much a C++ guy can get these days? > >Interviewer: Last I heard, a really top guy is worth > $70 - $80 an > >hour. > >Stroustrup: See? And I bet he earns it. Keeping track > of all the > >gotchas I put into C++ is no easy job. And, as I said > >before, every C++ programmer feels bound by some > mystic > >promise to use every damn element of the language on > every > >project. Actually, that really annoys me sometimes, > even > >though it serves my original purpose. I almost like > the > >language after all this time. > >Interviewer: You mean you didnt before? > >Stroustrup: Hated it. It even looks clumsy, dont you > agree? But > >when the book royalties started to come in... well, > you get the > >picture. > >Interviewer: Just a minute. What about references? > You must > >admit, you improved on C pointers. > >Stroustrup: Hmm. Ive always wondered about that. > Originally, I > >thought I had. Then, one day I was discussing this > with a > >guy whod written C++ from the beginning. He said he > could never > >remember whether his variables were referenced or > >dereferenced, so he always used pointers. He said the > >little asterisk always reminded him. > >Interviewer: Well, at this point, I usually say thank > you very > >much but it hardly seems adequate. > >Stroustrup: Promise me youll publish this. My > conscience is > >getting the better of me these days. > >Interviewer: Ill let you know, but I think I know > what my editor > >will say. > >Stroustrup: Whod believe it anyway? Although, can you > send me a > >copy of that tape? > >Interviewer: I can do that. > ________________________________ > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > To visit your group on the web, go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tech4all/ > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > > > ****** This email is confidential and is intended for the original > recipient(s) only. If you have erroneously received this mail, please delete > it immediately and notify the sender. Unauthorized copying, disclosure or > distribution of the material in this mail is prohibited. Views expressed in > this mail are those of the individual sender and do not bind Thinksoft > Global Services (P) Ltd. or its subsidiary, unless the sender has done so > expressly with due authority of Thinksoft.****** > -- Kumar Gaurav Bijay BTech-II CSE IIT Bombay. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tech4all/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
