(OT) Re: memory management

[Bert Peers <rat@larian.com>]

Keith Lucas wrote:

> Yes, but it's hard enough to get people to use ANYTHING decent. At least they're
> already using C++. Walk into anywhere real which has a 100 people doing C++ and
> say "actually you need to switch to SmallTalk" - you're still going to be
> hearing the laughter a month later. "If you work like this, your C++ programs
> might be a bit more stable" is a bit less of a cliff.
> I'd learn smalltalk if I thought it would be remotely useful, but I keep on
> getting C++ work, and it's not even stretching the C++ envelope - it's
> practically C-with-classes coding. 10 years, and the industry in general might
> be able to handle smalltalk.

I'm hearing exactly the same kind of talk from the Ada95 people, who refer back to
C++ *and* smalltalk (and lotsof others) as the Evil Legacy from the past, saying
that
*if* they get some Ada95 work to do, it is then still C++ with a bit of threading,
for
instance.  Smalltalk may be better than C++ from an OO design point of
view, but Ada95 is probably even better because of built in scheduling, rocksolid
exception handling, perfectly specifiable types (no porting issues), support for
embedded hardware etc... But you're right : even though I'm a supporter of the
language, I've so far written about, ehm, well that would be zero professional lines

of code with it...

The best way to make people see the light could be : make them jealous :)
I've had some coworkers who were hardcore C people and who totally freaked
out on the ease at which I would stub classes (proxies), switch algorithms
(strategies), add functionality without messing all up (visitors) etc etc etc...
It could all be done with C but is easier with C++..

I have no idea why anno 1999 people keep starting projects with intros like
"so I'm starting this game/editor/compiler/... and need some SDKs *but*
no C++ !!!".... :(

Bert
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