Objektno orijentisano programiranje - šala?

Objektno orijentisano programiranje - šala?

 >
 >                 "I Did It For You All..."
 >
 > On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup gave an interview
 > to the IEEE's 'Computer' magazine.
 >
 > Naturally, the editors thought 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 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 're-useable code' - when did you ever hear
 >     of a company re-using 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 treacle. 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:  Remember the length of the average-sized 'C' project?
 >     About 6 months. Not nearly long enough for a guy with a
 >     wife and kids to earn enough to have a decent standard of
 >     living. Take the same project, design it in C++ and what do
 >     you get?  I'll tell you. One to two years. Isn't that
 >     great?  All that job security, just through one mistake of
 >     judgement. And another thing. 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 $70 - $80 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.
 >
 >
 > This is most likely a joke, but it's a fun read?