OO-ihmisille
Marko Mattila
Huomenta
Ikäväkseni täytyy todeta että Olaveita ei näkynyt kyykän
mm-kisoissa eikä olympialaisissa viskomassa curlingia.
Koska harrasteet näyttävät painottuvat muualle, tässä
Bjarne Stroustrupin tuorein haastattelu. Tarkoitettu
erityisesti OO-ihmisille.
> On the 1st of January, 1998, Bjarne Stroustrup gave an
> interview to the IEEE's 'Computer' magazine.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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.
> >
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
240 riviä rautaista asiaa. Hauskaa OO-päivän jatkoa.
m.
--
Yksikään arvovaltainen ekonomisti ei osannut ennustaa
Aasian talouskiiriä. -Kauppalehti 13.1.1998