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From: bs@research.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup)
Subject: Re: What is wrong with OO ?
Message-ID: <E509s5.LHA@research.att.com>
Organization: AT&T Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA
References: <dewar.853017041@merv> <E413nz.9IA@research.att.com> <32E7F7D5.15FB7483@eiffel.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 02:33:41 GMT
Lines: 129
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:245514 comp.lang.smalltalk:50917 comp.lang.eiffel:18184 comp.lang.ada:57159 comp.object:60818 comp.software-eng:53392


Bertrand Meyer <bertrand@eiffel.com> writes:

 > Bjarne Stroustrup wrote:
 > 
 > > C++ use grew
 > > very nicely for years without hype. I base my statement on years of looking
 > > at C++ use, teching, and learning - many of those years were before anyone
 > > was given time off from their day job to learn C++.
 > 
 > [...]
 > 
 > > [C++] would have died during
 > > the early years where there were essentially no C++ marketing and alternatives
 > > languages with marketing dollars behind them existed.
 > 
 > This is really too far off the reality to let pass. Not that I think
 > Bjarne Stroustrup is less than forthcoming; he is undoubtedly sincere in
 > believing that he was a researcher led by purely intellectual motives
 > competing against crass commercialists. From within Bell Labs he may
 > have had that impression. But anyone seeing the real situation in the
 > software world at large could not fail to notice the gigantic amount of
 > both "hype" (his term in the first paragraph) and "marketing" (his term
 > in the second) behind C++. The mere fact that it came from AT&T and was
 > from the start endorsed by other billion-dollar companies was what got
 > the industry to listen. It does not mean that the language was bad (and
 > neither does it mean the reverse) - simply that the quality of the
 > language was, if not completely irrelevant, far secondary to the
 > marketing push.

Hmm. If I were that far out of touch with reality and also sincere,
what would that make me?

I suspect that I cannot have been too far out of touch with "reality."
Getting a new language into large-scale industrial use is harder than
most people are willing to believe.

C++ wasn't "endorsed from the start" by any billion-dollar companies
(whatever that might mean), and there were no "marketing push" from
AT&T. For the first OOPSLA, the AT&T C++ folks could afford neither
a computer for demos nor flyers to hand out, so we borrowed a blackboard
and had a great time nevertheless!

A large company such as AT&T - especially a VERY large company such as
AT&T before the various breakups - doesn't speak with one voice and
is a rather harsh enviroment in which to get something new accepted.
Because of the critical nature of the backbone telephone system, AT&T
is also a rather conservative company in areas that touch upon its
core business. This adds to the odds against success of something
new - such as C++.

C++ was only reluctantly allowed out after it became too successful
to ignore, even in that tough environment. However, at the time - and
for years after the initial C++ release - AT&T's major software offering
was UNIX/C and managers primarily responsible for C and C-related
products controlled funding and policy.

So, C got the high-level support, ninetysome percent of the development
budget, and essentially all of the (rather limited) software marketing
budget. There were successes that the C++ folks were not allowed to talk
about and there a few papers were delayed for years and watered down
before they could be published: They showed C in an unflattering light.
There were also (failed) attempts to impose language changes (in the
direction of C compatibility and weaker type checking) by management
fiat.

C++ succeded, though, but it was against the odds and C++ isn't an
example of a billion-dollar company throwing its marketing muscle
behind a product. Whatever credit C++ got for coming from AT&T, it
earned by successes in a very demanding environment.


 > In the field of advanced technology, furthermore, marketing is not just
 > expensive ads in magazines. It is also access of various approaches to
 > scientific conferences and publications. The record of OOPSLA in this
 > respect has been (and continues to be) less than pristine. To put it
 > politely, it has always been made very clear that some approaches were
 > more equal than others.

I think that you greatly underrate people's good will and fairness in
reviewing technical papers.

I happen to largely agree with you in the case of early OOPSLA panels.
The Objective C and Smaltalk people seemed to have a lock on those
and commercial factors appeared to dominate. This may simply have
been an effect of the organizers background and (bad :-) taste, but
C++ most certainly wasn't granted any special favors. You weren't
the only person at the early OOPSLAs handing out flyers attacking C++
and explaining to all who cared to listen why they should buy your
product instead. In particular, the folks from PPI selling Objective C,
seemed to greatly fear C++ as a competitor to the title of "the OO C."
I guess time proved their worst fears well founded.


 > This has had a rather vicious consequence: that people promoting
 > less-hyped and less-politically-correct approaches, coming in many cases
 > from private industry (often precisely because they were more innovative
 > and could not find a hospitable environment in academia or even large
 > corporate research labs) had to resort to the normal, commercial forms
 > of "marketing", thus allowing their better endowed competitors to drape
 > themselves in the mantle of Pure Science and accuse the former of crass
 > commercialism. This is a very effective tactic, and worked quite well in
 > the history of O-O: keeping innovators  away from the Establishment,
 > forcing them to go to the commercial sector, and then frowning on them
 > on the grounds of academic impurity. Quite smart.

Hmm. That's one view of the world. It is not mine.

 
 > All this being said, I must add that while I am not a great fan of C++ I
 > agree with Bjarne Stroustrup that marketing and hype alone, on any
 > scale, would not by themselves have been able to bring C++ to the level
 > of success that it reached. Clearly, it filled for many people a
 > pressing need at the right time. Although Dr. Stroustrup's second
 > paragraph as quoted above (the point about there being no marketing for
 > C++) does not hold water, the first part (omitted above):
 > 
 > 	[U]nless C++ had at least some of the virtues I claim for it,
 > 	it would have died during the early years
 > 
 > is absolutely correct. To take  the first analogy that comes to mind,
 > the Apple Newton is yet one more example that no company, however big,
 > can force on the public a technology that the public does not want.

Thanks.

	- Bjarne

Bjarne Stroustrup, AT&T Research, http://www.research.att.com/~bs/homepage.html
