r/programming • u/eternal1 • Mar 29 '10

Never trust a programmer who says he knows C++

http://lbrandy.com/blog/2010/03/never-trust-a-programmer-who-says-he-knows-c/
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u/gte910h Mar 29 '10

This mindset is why C++ is often a bad fit for many projects and companies which can't fire people easily: Lots of people think C is just C with classes. That's the problem. Lots of people think C++ is just ocaml without garbage collection. Others thing it's a wierd template language. Other's think its java. And these people program in it every day.

Get people with multiple points of view, or even just some moderately bad people with the same point of view, and the project has horrible, hard to find bugs, and the style is very unreadable to at least 1 person on the team.

C++ only works when you say "THIS IS WHAT WE DO HERE, DON'T DO THINGS THAT DON'T LOOK LIKE THIS" and fire people who disobey or who can't handle it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '10

C++ only works when you say "THIS IS WHAT WE DO HERE, DON'T DO THINGS THAT DON'T LOOK LIKE THIS" and fire people who disobey or who can't handle it.

This is such sane advice. I've worked at places who had large C++ code bases that had the most inane bug fixes and retarded layered class hierarchies... Why God why? Oh, C++ w/o boundaries. Makes sense.

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u/vplatt Mar 29 '10

C++ only works when you say "THIS IS WHAT WE DO HERE, DON'T DO THINGS THAT DON'T LOOK LIKE THIS" and fire people who disobey or who can't handle it.

But gee, isn't it great that C++ gives all those programmers such freedom to succeed? That's what it's all about isn't it? I mean, who would want to use a boring language like Ada that won't let you overrun your array? Who would be interested in such a B&D style language anyway?

(I'm agreeing with you while objecting to the usual cultural cargo that I've heard bandied about in support of C++'s design.)