Re: assembler [was: Re: cheers for gogo]

[Al Hudson <nospam [at] york.ac.uk>]

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, Alastair Donlon wrote:

> > I don't know how people can call C++ bloated. For a start, it's just a
> > language, which may be translated into asm in any way a compiler sees fit.
> > There is no unique C++ -> Asm mapping function available. To call a
> > compiler bloated, maybe, but not the language.
> 
> Of course you can call a language bloated. When it offers features in
> a myriad of possible ways that do exactly the same things. That's the
> difference between, say, Scheme and Common LISP. I would argue that
> C++ gives the programmer too much freedom to do things as he/she
> wants. It gives you all the rope you want to hang yourself with. Much
> of the functionality is only useful in a very small number of circumstances.
> In other cases, it may be used, but it is not the best solution. Operator
> overloading is one example, 'friendly' classes are another.

I would argue the language is just the choice of expression; it's the
algorithm that counts, and the language is just the method you use to
express the algorithm. At this level, choice of language matters not one
jot. Comparing different algorithms in different languages is like
comparing apples with oranges.

The number of facilities available in C++ doesn't really make any
difference either. The advanced features of which you speak are all, IIRC,
zero-overhead features, as are the rest of these type - if you don't use
the features, they have zero overhead on your program. C++ allows the
programmer to express his algorithms in a number of ways, and the vast
range of facilities available help you do this. 

If anyone really wants to see the benefits of C++, go over to SGI and
check out the standard template library. And try using them - the
improvement in code quality is noticeable, and the executable is just as
quick. I'm not particularly interested in the OO aspects of C++, but the
generic programming facilities are excellent.

Cheers,

Alex.


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