Re: Spirit rover OS problems ( a reliable language )

From: Eric Smith (eric-no-spam-for-me_at_brouhaha.com)
Date: 02/11/04 

Date: 11 Feb 2004 10:25:23 -0800

spammers_lie@pandora.orbl.org writes:
> ISTR someone saying something along the lines of:
>
> C gives you enough rope to hang yourself.
> C++ gives you enough rope to rig a brigantine and still
> have enough left over to hang yourself.

If C gives you enough rope to hang yourself, C++ gives you enough rope
to bind and gag the neighborhood, rig the sails on a small ship, and
still have enough rope to hang yourself from the yardarm.
          -- The UNIX-Hater's Handbook

A few other quotes:

C++ is a fairytale language. Unfortunately, the fairytale is not The
Goose that laid the Golden Eggs, but rather The Emperor has no Clothes.
          -- Peter van der Linden

C++ is already too large and complicated for our taste.
          -- X3J16, (SIGPLAN notices, June 1992)

C++ will do for C what Algol-68 did for Algol.
          -- David L. Jones

If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a protected
abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor and when was the
last time you needed one?
          -- Tom Cargin (C++ Journal, Fall 1990)
  [see <http://www.apostate.com/programming/c-tech.html>]
  [see Peter van der Linden, _Expert C Programming_, Page 327]

It has been discovered that C++ provides a remarkable facility for
concealing the trivial details of a program - such as where its bugs
are.
          -- David Keppel

My only real objection to C++ is that it's used widely.
          -- David Keppel

There are 26 items under the index entry for ambiguity in the Annotated
C++ Reference Manual.
          -- IAFF counted them, 1994

When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.
          -- Steve Haflich (smh@franz.com)

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but
when you do, it blows away your whole leg.
          -- Bjarne Stroustrup
[I personally disagree with the claim that C++ makes it harder.]

C++ has it's place in the history of programming languages. Just as
Caligula has his place in the history of the Roman Empire.
          -- Robert Firth

If C++ has taught me one thing, it's this: Just because the system is
consistent doesn't mean it's not the work of Satan.
          -- Andrew Plotkin

Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling to
get out.
          -- Bjarne Stroustrup

PL/I and Ada started out with all the bloat, were very daunting languages,
and got bad reputations (deservedly). C++ has shown that if you slowly
bloat up a language over a period of years, people don't seem to mind
as much.
          -- James Hague

Being really good at C++ is like being really good at using rocks to
sharpen sticks.
          -- Thant Tessman

Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how
they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both".
So the language is too baroque for my taste.
          -- Donald E Knuth

To me C++ seems to be a language that has sacrificed orthogonality and
elegance for random expediency.
          -- Meilir Page-Jones

I consider C++ the most significant technical hazard to the survival of
your project and do so without apologies.
          -- Alistair Cockburn

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