Just for the sake of historicity for those less -- chronologically
enhanced-- than RGB or myself, the joke is attributed to Stroustroup,
not Thompson.<br>
<br>
1. Ken Thompson wrote B (late 60's). Really minimal. Based largely on BCPL, but minimal, ergo "B".<br>
2. Ken wrote Unix, in assembler.<br>
3. Dennis Ritchie wrote C (sucessor to "B") to be usably featurefull
(you can read the entire definition of B in a few minutes, at
<a href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/kbman.html">http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/kbman.html</a>, which has been
scanned and cleaned up since I last saw it).<br>
4. Ken and Dennis rewrote unix together in C. (Torvalds ported the
kernel to the x86 architecture, with an open license, unlike earlier
ports; Pavel Curtis ported X, lots of people subsequently did too many
too wonderful helpful things, etc)<br>
5. Stroustrup wrote C++ (which in C means, "the sucessor of C", that
is, the increment operator; so continues the joking naming convention).
The name "C++" is something of a joke, and it's sorta funny that it's
not "++C" (give you the value after incrementing, instead of before)
and it is way more featureful than Ritchie's usablility requirement.<br>
<br>
As of C89 (I think) the // comment delimiter is in C; for awhile that
whas the only thing in C++ we all gladly adopted when writing
K&R C for a C++ compiler :-) Ritchie apologizes for omimtting //.
Similarly, THompson apologizes for "creat" nomenclature. ("create").<br>
<br>
I myself am glad to have functions (methods) associated with structures
(classes), it's great organizationally. However, I have never writeen:<br>
cout << foo << '\n'<br>
and I never will, other than to illustrate what I don't do. I have no
idea how that looks wholesome in Stoustrup's world view, definitely he
has huge amounts of language-designer wisdom which I myself do not, but
it's not necessary. stdio and stdlib are still there and they still
work. Sometimes it takes me awhile to read someone else's C++,
but sometimes it takes me awhile to read someone else's C, and
sometimes it takes me a while to read my own :-) Neither language (or,
neither subset) obliges clarity, and neither prevents it.<br>
<br>
Peter<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/26/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Robert G. Brown</b> <<a href="mailto:rgb@phy.duke.edu">rgb@phy.duke.edu</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<span class="q">On Tue, 26 Aug 2008, Kyle Spaans wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 09:22:39PM +0100, Alcides Simao wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Isn't C++ a hoax? I mean, Ken Thompson admitted it was just a joke...<br>
In paralell computing, it must be quite a BIG joke!<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I sure hope not! The ``Parallel & Concurrent Programming'' class[1] at my school<br>
uses a language called uC++ to teach us concepts. I'll be taking the class in<br>
another year or so.<br>
<br>
[1] <a href="http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/%7Ecs343/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs343/</a><br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
But wait, there is this:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.phy.duke.edu/%7Ergb/Beowulf/c++_interview/c++_interview.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Beowulf/c++_interview/c++_interview.html</a><br>
<br>
which says it all, far better than I could ever say it...;-)<br>
<br>
rgb<br><span class="sg">
<br>
-- <br>
Robert G. Brown
Phone(cell): 1-919-280-8443<br>
Duke University Physics Dept, Box 90305<br>
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305<br>
Web: <a href="http://www.phy.duke.edu/%7Ergb" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb</a><br>
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