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From: kanze@us-es.sel.de (James Kanze US/ESC 60/3/141 #40763)
Subject: Re: C+@ vs C++ Was C++ Productivity
In-Reply-To: nagle@netcom.com's message of Thu, 2 Feb 1995 02:44:10 GMT
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Date: 06 Feb 1995 19:25:32 GMT
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:111377 comp.lang.smalltalk:20466 comp.object:26284

In article <nagleD3Cq9M.1Mn@netcom.com> nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
writes:

|> jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming) writes as if there's 
|> an anti-C+@ conspiracy.

|>       It's not impossible to promote a new language.  Look at Osterholt's
|> TCL, which fills a niche like that of Visual Basic for UNIX users.
|> TCL is a truly awful language; the syntax is painful, the scoping is
|> appalling, and the performance is poor.  But it's adequate for writing
|> little interactive programs, it's free, and there aren't many alternatives
|> in the UNIX market.

|>       It's really hard to promote a single-vendor language, unless
|> you're as big as Microsoft.  Remember Actor?  Neon?  Prograph?  Mesa?
|> The demise of the whole Pascal/Modula family is harder to explain,
|> since those languages had a solid track record of good software
|> implemented in them.

The Pascal/Modula family is not completely dead.  I know a number of
people working in Modula-3 (including some members of the C++
standards committee:-)

Dispite what at least one other poster has indicated, I think that
Andy Koenigs explination concerning the plethora of Pascal dialects is
a significant part of the reason why this language family didn't take
off until it was too late, and is not more popular.  Of course, the
fact that most programmers are probably invenerate hackers who don't
want to have to write correct code probably plays a role, too.  It
certainly affects the market for compilers, which in turn affects the
number of compilers available.  (Please note my logic carefully.  I am
saying that hackers will prefer C to Pascal; I'm making no statement
concerning the preferences of professional programmers.  In fact, a
number of people whose work I highly estime have defended C++ in this
forum.)
-- 
James Kanze         Tel.: (+33) 88 14 49 00        email: kanze@gabi-soft.fr
GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
Conseils en informatique industrielle --
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