Creator Bjarne Stroustrup
The Invention of C++ Language
How and why it is the way it is.
RIP 2011 Dennis Ritchie Inventor Father of C Programming Language
" Hoax interview between Stroustrup and IEEE Computer has been making the rounds in cyberspace. While we regret the incident, it offers us a welcome opportunity to have the father of C++ share his insights on Standard C++ and software development in general. We can also attest to his continued sense of proportion and humor-he suggests that the fictitious interview would have been a much funnier parody had he written it himself." -Scott Hamilton, Computer See real Interview
It may have been a hoax, but beyond the essential lie that it was an interview with Stroustrup, there's a lot of inconvenient truth therein. IMHO, C++ is a complex and powerful language that takes some effort to learn to apply well. Personally, since I've never had the time or need to make the requisite investment, I tend to avoid it's use. --Bob
January 1, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup
bs - research.att.com AT&T Research, Florham Park, NJ
07932-0971, USA
gave an interview to the IEEE's 'Computer' magazine. The editors
assumed 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 said, unedited, and unrehearsed, so it isn't as neat as
planned interviews. You will find it interesting...
Interviewer:
Well, it's 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.
That's 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:
That's 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 what's 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 a bitch of a 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:
You're 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, that's 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 don't believe you said that...
Stroustrup:
Well, it's 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, it's 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 'reuseable code' --- when did you ever hear of a
company reusing 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 didn't?
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
molasses. Actually, I thought this would be a major
stumbling-block, and I'd 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 couldn't 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 won't 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. Isn't multiple inheritance
a joy?
Interviewer:
Yes, but C++ is basically a sound language.
Stroustrup:
You really believe that, don't you? Have you ever sat down and
worked on a C++ project? Here's what happens: First, I've 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 can't 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 manager's ribs.
Interviewer:
I have to say, I'm beginning to be quite appalled at all this. You
say you did it to raise programmers' salaries? That's obscene.
Stroustrup:
Not really. Everyone has a choice. I didn't 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, it's impossible to maintain a large C++ software module
if you didn't actually write it?
Interviewer:
How come?
Stroustrup:
You are out of touch, aren't 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 you've succeeded?
Stroustrup:
The universities haven't been teaching 'C' for such a long time, there's 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 they've 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 shouldn't isn't. 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, you'll 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 it's 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 he'd help me write a C++ version of DOS, if I was
interested.
Interviewer:
Were you?
Stroustrup:
Actually, I did write DOS in C++, I'll give you a demo when we're
through. I have it running on a Sparc 20 in the computer room.
Goes like a rocket on 4 CPU's, and only takes up 70 megs of disk.
Interviewer:
What's it like on a PC?
Stroustrup:
Now you're kidding. Haven't 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, there's a guy going to try it.
Stroustrup:
Not after they read this interview.
Interviewer:
I'm sorry, but I don't see us being able to publish any of this.
Stroustrup:
But it's the story of the century. I only want to be remembered by
my fellow programmers, for what I've done for them. You know how
much a C++ guy can get these days?
Interviewer:
Last I heard, a really top guy is worth $80 - $90 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 didn't before?
Stroustrup:
Hated it. It even looks clumsy, don't 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. I've always wondered about that. Originally, I thought I had.
Then, one day I was discussing this with a guy who'd 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 you'll publish this. My conscience is getting the
better of me these days.
Interviewer:
I'll let you know, but I think I know what my editor will say.
Stroustrup:
Who'd believe it anyway? Although, can you send me a copy of that
tape?
Interviewer:
I can do that.
-------END-----------
g++
is known as a
compiler
, a program that will take your C++ source code and compile it
into a binary file that can be executed to actually run your
program. This page will give you the basics on how to take a
source code file and compile it into an executable, as well as
show you some of the options you have when you compile a source
code file.
typedef is a keyword in the C Programming Language and C++ programming language . It is used to give existing datatypes new names to make a program more readable to the programmer.
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RIP 2011 Dennis Ritchie Inventor Father of C Programming Language top
Dennis Ritchie, in Memoriam
By Andrew Binstock, October 13, 2011http://drdobbs.com/cpp/231900742
The inventor of C, designer of a universal language syntax, and a
major contributor to UNIX died this week at the age of 70.
Earlier this week, Dennis Ritchie (dmr) passed away. The inventor
of the C language and key contributor to several operating systems
died after a long illness. Even though he'd been sick a while, his
death came as a surprise. Just a few months ago, I called his
house hoping to set up an interview. I knew he'd been ill, but his
administrator kindly suggested that he was feeling better and that
with a little persistence, I should be able to work past his
shyness and get him on the phone. There was no hint then that he
was so gravely ill. That shyness, or more correctly, Ritchie's
desire to avert attention despite his contributions to computing,
are among the first things most people who knew him point out.
Perhaps for that reason, he was often the first to poke fun at his
creations even while recognizing their special place in computing:
"C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success." And, of UNIX, "It
is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its
simplicity."
Behind the modesty, however, hummed a motor of remarkable
technical creativity. C's clean syntax has been the default syntax
for most languages since it emerged in the '70s(!). Eight of the
top 10 programming languages today (per Tiobe) draw directly from
C for their syntax, including the #2 language, which is C itself.
No language ever has enjoyed continuous popularity at so high a
level for so long. This is due no doubt to Ritchie's intuitive way
of expressing all that a system language need do. In the design,
he was greatly aided by his longtime collaborator, Ken Thompson.
During my
recent interview with Thompson
, he discussed how Ritchie's work evolved as Thompson used it to
rewrite UNIX: "The language grew up with one of the rewritings of
the system and, as such, it became perfect for writing systems. We
would change it daily as we ran into trouble building UNIX...and
we'd modify it for our needs. It became the perfect language for
what it was designed to do."
What is not widely appreciated is how much of the C syntax was
invented from whole cloth by Ritchie and Thompson. C is generally
seen as a derivative work from BCPL, but in fact, a quick look at
the
documentation of BCPL
shows a very different language, missing many of today's common
syntactical constructs and all of Ritchie and Thompson's
minimalist elegance.
That elegance was then transported by Ritchie to the
K&R book
, which remains the defining language tutorial against which all
others are measured and from which all others have been given
their canonical first example,"hello, world".
In UNIX, Ritchie was in charge of writing the I/O portions and
some of the utilities. He reprised his systems work in the
ill-fated but innovative Plan9 OS in the 1980s and '90s.
Between the two stints, he and Thompson shared the Turing prize.
In his acceptance speech, Ritchie foresaw issues that have become
serious concerns during the last few years: "More than anything
else, the greatest danger to good computer science research today
may be
excessive
relevance...As the intensity of research in a particular area
increases, so does the impulse to keep its results secret."
He then entered into a more subtle concern that remains a powerful
but comparatively under-discussed agent today: "Another danger is
that commercial pressures of one sort or another will divert the
attention of the best thinkers from real innovation to
exploitation of the current fad from prospecting to mining a known
lode. These pressures manifest themselves not only in the
disappearance of faculty into industry, but also in the
conservatism that overtakes those with well-paying investments
"intellectual or financial" in a given idea." Amen.
Ritchie saw in language what others could not see, in operating
system what others had not built, and in the world around him what
others did not realize. His insight and the elegance of his work
will be missed by all programmers, even in future generations who,
as he would want it, might know nothing of him.