Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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From: csc1alf@cabell.vcu.edu (Adrian L. Flanagan)
Subject: Re: another take on "C is faster than lisp"
Message-ID: <1994Sep1.210029.6968@cabell.vcu.edu>
Organization: Virginia Commonwealth University
References: <33vlr1$2ud@info-server.bbn.com> <340534$1k1@eraserhead.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 1994 21:00:29 GMT
Expires: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 04:00:00 GMT
Lines: 32

curt@beowulf.jpl.nasa.gov (Curt Eggemeyer) writes:

>working on three other tasks (most are fortunately lisp-based). Yet, inspite
>of our demonstration of maintainability and rapid response to new
>requirements, our management here still holds to the C/C++ is the defacto
>standard language for all applications. Even though it is sort of an apple
>to oranges comparison (the C/C++ based applications are strictly maintained
>in the standard requirements documentation/lifecycle way, while we have
>yet to be force into that paradigm) the equivalent C++ application to mine
>eats up ~5x the budget of my stuff and requires ~4x the manpower support.

>	... oh well

That may well be true, and I don't want to seem be taking a position
in the Lisp v. C++ debate (which is a good way to get your head shot
off to no good purpose, kind of like sightseeing in Bosnia).  That
said, I should point out that support and maintenance issues are
very dependant on the skill and professionalism of the programmers
who wrote the original code.  If you and the C++ programmers were
interchanged, I expect that ratio would be quite different.
C++'s problem is that you _can_ write very good code with it, but
it's a lot easier to write incomprehensible garbage.  C had that
problem to begin with, and C++ seems to have raised it to a higher
degree of seriousness.  For that matter, Lisp can get pretty flaky;
but (dangerous generalization) there are a lot more untrained
amatuers writing C++ code than writing Lisp code.
In general, a lot of the programmers writing code out there are
really terrible, but I haven't seen a proposal for handling it that
looked workable.
-- 
A. Lloyd Flanagan  a.k.a. "Wild Card"
Think:  What you do when you can't thwim.  -- Dexter's Disturbed Dictionary
