[MUD-Dev] Languages

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Sat, 24 May 1997 15:45:08 PST8PDT, Jeff Kesselman
<jeffk at tenetwork.com> wrote:

>I tend to agree with that.  It forces alot m,ore design thought early in
>your project

Which you should be doing anyway...

>and if you get the design wrong ya can't easily hack around it,
>you need to revisit your design.

Which greatly impacts the time needed for the project... 

I REALLY hate that idea. I'm an artist. Not a good one, but I am an
artist. And as any artist will tell you, you will NOT learn how to draw
if you throw a failure in the trash. You learn by working lightly in
pencil, and fixing what you mess up. Trying it over and over again until
you get it right. In other words, by modifying what you have instead of
going back and starting over. C++ actively discourages this. I find that
ominous, but I'll keep my industry conspiracy theories to myself.

>I happen to consider these GOOD properties in a language.

I consider the former upsetting. Force *me* to do something, eh? Bite
me! The latter, I see as more of a liability. Encouraging reuse and
discouraging modification is a bad combination; you should encourage
BOTH. 

>I sugges that, like any tool, those wh odon't udnerstadn what C++ is doing
>probably shouldn't sue it, or at least not if they want optimal results.

Uhhhhh... I don't like that comment. "If you are not already an expert,
do not enter the field." Excuse me? Is that really what you meant, or am
I mishearing you?

>Ever see a newbie pick up a hammer?  They use it in precisely the WRONG way
>beause they are acting o nwhat they knwo from the past and don't yet
>understand how the hammer works (they "choke up" on the handle.)

And then someone says 'Hey, do this' and bam, they know how to use the
hammer. ASSUMING (and this is a problem with C++ as well) that the
person nearby not only knows how, but is capable of articulating that
knowledge. I don't know how many times someone has told me when I'm
asking about MFC that I should "Read the class heirarchy". Dammit, I
already did that. Nobody seems to have any clue HOW they use C++, they
just do. It just works. Or at the very least, the people who understand
it aren't responding to questions. They keep sending me to literature
which patently does not contain the answer, and I have the distinct
feeling that I'm in the country of the blind. Nobody knows what they're
doing. It's magic. You wave the dead chicken and throw the bones, and it
rains. When you do get a response to a question, it tends to be
something like "Go get yourself a fresh chicken. You'll figure it out."

>If yer gonan try to use a tool optimally ya better learn how it works first
>or ya gonna hurt yerself.

"C++ makes it much harder for you to shoot yourself in the foot, but
when you do, it blows off your whole leg." -- Bjarne Stoustrup

I don't like that. It doesn't give me faith in the language. ;)

-+[caliban at darklock.com]+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
 I am here to grind your eyes harder into the miasmic bile of life; to 
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 the crimson scent of blood as it rises to meet the caress of a blade. 
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